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H.R. 2829, THE OFFICE OF NATIONAL DRUG CONTROL POLICY REAUTHORIZATION ACT OF 2005

HEARING

BEFORE THE

SUBCOMMITTEE ON CRIMINAL JUSTICE,

DRUG POLICY, AND HUMAN RESOURCES

OF THE

COMMITTEE ON

GOVERNMENT REFORM

HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES

ONE HUNDRED NINTH CONGRESS

FIRST SESSION

ON

H.R. 2829

TO AUTHORIZE THE OFFICE OF NATIONAL DRUG CONTROL POLICY ACT

JUNE 15, 2005

Serial No. 109–73

Printed for the use of the Committee on Government Reform

(

Available via the World Wide Web: http://www.gpoaccess.gov/congress/index.html

http://www.house.gov/reform

(II)

COMMITTEE ON GOVERNMENT REFORM

TOM DAVIS, Virginia, Chairman

CHRISTOPHER SHAYS, Connecticut

DAN BURTON, Indiana

ILEANA ROS-LEHTINEN, Florida

JOHN M. MCHUGH, New York

JOHN L. MICA, Florida

GIL GUTKNECHT, Minnesota

MARK E. SOUDER, Indiana

STEVEN C. LATOURETTE, Ohio

TODD RUSSELL PLATTS, Pennsylvania

CHRIS CANNON, Utah

JOHN J. DUNCAN, JR., Tennessee

CANDICE S. MILLER, Michigan

MICHAEL R. TURNER, Ohio

DARRELL E. ISSA, California

GINNY BROWN-WAITE, Florida

JON C. PORTER, Nevada

KENNY MARCHANT, Texas

LYNN A. WESTMORELAND, Georgia

PATRICK T. MCHENRY, North Carolina

CHARLES W. DENT, Pennsylvania

VIRGINIA FOXX, North Carolina

——— ———

HENRY A. WAXMAN, California

TOM LANTOS, California

MAJOR R. OWENS, New York

EDOLPHUS TOWNS, New York

PAUL E. KANJORSKI, Pennsylvania

CAROLYN B. MALONEY, New York

ELIJAH E. CUMMINGS, Maryland

DENNIS J. KUCINICH, Ohio

DANNY K. DAVIS, Illinois

WM. LACY CLAY, Missouri

DIANE E. WATSON, California

STEPHEN F. LYNCH, Massachusetts

CHRIS VAN HOLLEN, Maryland

LINDA T. SANCHEZ, California

C.A. DUTCH RUPPERSBERGER, Maryland

BRIAN HIGGINS, New York

ELEANOR HOLMES NORTON, District of

Columbia

———

BERNARD SANDERS, Vermont

(Independent)

MELISSA WOJCIAK, Staff Director

DAVID MARIN, Deputy Staff Director/Communications Director

ROB BORDEN, Parliamentarian/Senior Counsel

TERESA AUSTIN, Chief Clerk

PHIL BARNETT, Minority Chief of Staff/Chief Counsel

SUBCOMMITTEE ON CRIMINAL JUSTICE, DRUG POLICY, AND HUMAN RESOURCES

MARK E. SOUDER, Indiana, Chairman

PATRICK T. MCHENRY, North Carolina

DAN BURTON, Indiana

JOHN L. MICA, Florida

GIL GUTKNECHT, Minnesota

STEVEN C. LATOURETTE, Ohio

CHRIS CANNON, Utah

CANDICE S. MILLER, Michigan

GINNY BROWN-WAITE, Florida

VIRGINIA FOXX, North Carolina

ELIJAH E. CUMMINGS, Maryland

BERNARD SANDERS, Vermont

DANNY K. DAVIS, Illinois

DIANE E. WATSON, California

LINDA T. SANCHEZ, California

C.A. DUTCH RUPPERSBERGER, Maryland

MAJOR R. OWENS, New York

ELEANOR HOLMES NORTON, District of

Columbia

EX OFFICIO

TOM DAVIS, Virginia HENRY A. WAXMAN, California

J. MARC WHEAT, Staff Director

NICHOLAS COLEMAN, Professional Staff Member and Counsel

MALIA HOLST, Clerk

TONY HAYWOOD, Minority Counsel

(III)

C O N T E N T S

Page

Hearing held on June 15, 2005 ............................................................................... 1

Text of H.R. 2829 ..................................................................................................... 8

Statement of:

Carr, Tom, Director, Washington-Baltimore HIDTA, on behalf of the National HIDTA Directors’ Association; and Stephen J. Pasierb, president

and CEO, Partnership for a Drug-Free America ....................................... 137

Carr, Tom ................................................................................................... 137

Pasierb, Stephen J. ................................................................................... 145

Walters, John, Director, Office of National Drug Control Policy ................. 106

Letters, statements, etc., submitted for the record by:

Carr, Tom, Director, Washington-Baltimore HIDTA, on behalf of the National HIDTA Directors’ Association, prepared statement of .................... 140

Cummings, Hon. Elijah E., a Representative in Congress from the State

of Maryland, prepared statement of ............................................................ 96

Pasierb, Stephen J., president and CEO, Partnership for a Drug-Free

America, prepared statement of .................................................................. 148

Souder, Hon. Mark E., a Representative in Congress from the State

of Indiana, prepared statement of ............................................................... 5

Walters, John, Director, Office of National Drug Control Policy, prepared

statement of ................................................................................................... 110

Watson, Hon. Diane E., a Representative in Congress from the State

of California, prepared statement of ........................................................... 104

(1)

H.R. 2829, THE OFFICE OF NATIONAL DRUG

CONTROL POLICY REAUTHORIZATION ACT

OF 2005

WEDNESDAY, JUNE 15, 2005

HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES,

SUBCOMMITTEE ON CRIMINAL JUSTICE, DRUG POLICY,

AND HUMAN RESOURCES,

COMMITTEE ON GOVERNMENT REFORM,

Washington, DC.

The subcommittee met, pursuant to notice, at 3 p.m., in room

2247, Rayburn House Office Building, Hon. Mark Souder (chairman of the subcommittee) presiding.

Present: Representatives Souder, Mica, Gutknecht, Cummings,

Norton, and Watson.

Staff present: Nicholas Coleman, professional staff member and

counsel; Michelle Gress, counsel; David Thomasson, congressional

fellow; Malia Holst, clerk; Tony Haywood, minority counsel; and

Jean Gosa, minority assistant clerk.

Mr. SOUDER. The subcommittee will come to order.

Good afternoon, and thank you all for coming. We should be able

to get through our hearing now without any more votes. Thank you

for your patience, Director Walters, and all the others who are testifying today. Today’s hearing assesses and addresses H.R. 2829,

the Office of the National Drug Control Policy Reauthorization Act

of 2005, which I introduced along with Chairman Davis of the full

committee.

Two years ago, Chairman Davis and I introduced the Office of

National Drug Control Policy Reauthorization Act of 2003, which

the committee adopted and the House passed unanimously. Regrettably, the Senate did not act on its version of the bill, meaning that

reauthorization had to wait until the 109th Congress.

This time around, we have kept many of the reforms first introduced in the 2003 bill. However, we have made some significant

changes to the earlier act, as a result of two main considerations.

First, we have attempted, to the greatest extent possible consistent with our subcommittee’s basic policies, to harmonize the House

and the Senate bills from the last Congress. While we do not expect

that the two chambers will pass identical bills, I do hope that we

can pave the way for initial passage and a successful conference by

reaching at least the broad outlines of a compromise. I look forward

to working with our Senate colleagues in that endeavor.

Second, our subcommittee’s hearings and other oversight activities since 2003 indicate that further reforms are necessary for

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ONDCP to fully achieve the goals that Congress intended for it in

1988. ONDCP’s reports to Congress on the progress of drug control

policies, its interactions with other agencies, and its management

of its own programs all need to be improved. This bill attempts to

strengthen, not weaken, the office and its programs.

At the outset, it is important to understand that ONDCP is a

very unique institution within the Federal Government. Although

it is situated within the Executive Office of the President, it is not

simply a political arm of the White House. If that were all that

Congress wanted from ONDCP, there would have been no reason

to establish the office by statute.

What Congress wanted instead was an office that would not only

assist the President, but would also be responsible to Congress to

account for the Federal Government’s progress in drug policy. That

is why Congress created the drug budget certification process, for

example, as well as other oversight tools.

From the beginning, then, the Director has had to serve two

masters—the President and the Congress. That is not an easy task,

and that dual responsibility must be kept in mind when reviewing

our bill and the administration’s response to it. Neither this nor

any administration is ever going to be entirely happy with how

Congress shapes the office, since what Members think of as oversight is typically seen as interference by an administration. That

is normal in a government with checks and balances.

Having said that, I would like to address several key sections of

the bill that have been singled out for criticism by the administration. First, the administration opposes the bill’s mandate that the

annual drug budget report prepared by ONDCP for the Congress

include all Federal drug control activities proposed by the President. Since 2002, the administration has tried, to the greatest extent possible, to limit the activities included in that budget to those

that have a separate line item account and are exclusively dedicated to drug control.

I understand the motivation behind the administration’s shift,

and I know that the office was trying to make the budget easier

to read and simpler to manage. However, in practice this policy

was never consistently implemented. Many activities were included, such as interdiction by the Coast Guard and legacy Customs Service, that were not exclusively dedicated to drug control.

Moreover, the new budget guidelines left out many activities that

the average citizen would think of as drug control, such as the cost

of prosecuting and incarcerating drug traffickers in Federal prisons. This led many critics, including our full committee Ranking

Member Henry Waxman, to charge that by excluding these items

the new budget artificially inflated the proportion of the drug control budget going to treatment and prevention, as opposed to enforcement.

I believe that, if we are going to err on one side or the other, we

should err on the side of inclusiveness. The primary purpose of the

drug budget required by Congress is to inform Congress and the

public about how much the administration is proposing to spend on

drug control. The bill does not call on the office to include activities

with only tangential connection to drug policy, but it does require

that all drug control activities defined in the act be included. We

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need a drug budget that attempts to be complete, rather than a

budget that is open to the charge, however unfair it may be, of political manipulation.

Second, ONDCP apparently is not going to fight too hard for its

earlier proposal to remove the High Intensity Drug Trafficking

Areas [HIDTA], program to the Department of Justice. However, it

is criticizing the provision in the bill that would require the administration to submit a separate budget request for each individual

HIDTA.

If ONDCP actually had the discretion to shift resources among

the HIDTAs, this criticism would have greater force. As it is, however, every appropriations bill since the late 1990’s has required

level funding for each individual HIDTA, meaning that ONDCP

has no real discretion over 90 percent of the program budget.

The 2003 House bill tried to remedy this problem by requiring

ONDCP to allocate resources through a ranking system, based on

relative importance to the national drug threat. It quickly became

clear, however, that the Senate would not agree to that system,

and it was opposed by many of the HIDTAs and their supporters

in Congress. This time around, we have adopted the Senate proposal to require individual HIDTA budget requests. Is this the best

possible solution? No. But I believe it is the only politically possible

way to break this appropriations logjam.

Finally, I would like to address a concern raised by both ONDCP

and the Partnership for a Drug-Free America about the Media

Campaign. Specifically, the administration and the Partnership

have opposed a provision in the bill that would require at least 82

percent of the campaign’s Federal dollars to be spent on the purchases of time and space for anti-drug advertising, if the campaign’s budget falls below $125 million. If the budget is above $125

million, this floor would only be 77 percent.

Last time around, ONDCP did not have much of a problem with this provision because the campaign’s budget was $145 million and

the Senate was proposing an 80 percent minimum floor, regardless

of the budget size. Now, however, the program’s budget has fallen

to $120 million, meaning that the 82 percent floor would apply.

ONDCP argues that this would force the campaign to abandon its

efforts to do Internet advertising and other, less traditional media

activities.

Anyone who has followed my career knows that I have fought to

strengthen the campaign and get it sufficient funding. If the dollars

were there, I would have no problem seeing some of them spent on

new media. But we included the 82 percent minimum for a reason.

The original intent and the primary purpose of the campaign is to

get anti-drug ads on the air. When the budget is shrinking and the

advertising costs are going up, diversifying into other areas, however great their future potential, just is not feasible.

Furthermore, I would have more sympathy if the administration

had actually requested more than $120 million for the campaign

this year. If ONDCP wants the campaign to do more, it should

start by fighting for more dollars. At some point, shrinking budgets

are going to make this campaign totally ineffective. That day will

only be hastened if the campaign tries to take on more responsibilities than its budget will allow.

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Although the bill we are considering today was technically sponsored by Chairman Davis and me, it is also the product of the work

of many interested parties who we consulted in drafting legislation.

It includes the Dawson Family Community Protection Act proposed

by the distinguished ranking member of this subcommittee, Mr.

Cummings. It includes a number of changes to current law requested by Director Walters and the administration. And it incorporates suggestions and ideas from other committees and Members

of Congress and key outside groups including the Community AntiDrug Coalitions of America, drug treatment providers, the Partnership for Drug Free America, the Ad Council, and members of Federal, State, local, and tribal law enforcement participating in the

HIDTA and CTAC programs, including the DEA.

I thought it was important, however, for the subcommittee to

hear from the primary organizations that would be affected by the

bill, and for that reason I asked Chairman Davis for the opportunity to hold this hearing before tomorrow’s markup. I very much

appreciate the willingness of our three witnesses to join us today

to discuss the bill.

We welcome Director John Walters of ONDCP; Director Tom

Carr of the Washington-Baltimore HIDTA, testifying on behalf of

the National HIDTA Directors Association; and Mr. Steve Pasierb

of the Partnership for Drug-Free America. We thank everyone for

joining us, and look forward to your testimony.

I would now like to yield to Ranking Member Mr. Cummings.

[The prepared statement of Hon. Mark E. Souder and the text

of H.R. 2829 follow:]

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Mr. CUMMINGS. Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman. I want to

thank you for holding this important hearing today with regard to

H.R. 2829, legislation to reauthorize the Office of National Drug

Control Policy.

During the 108th Congress, the Government Reform Committee

reported on a bipartisan basis and the House passed H.R. 2086.

Like H.R. 2086, the bill before us would reauthorize the Office of

National Drug Control Policy and three key programs administered

by ONDCP—the High-Intensity Drug Trafficking Areas program,

the Counterdrug Technology Assessment Center, and the National

Youth Anti-Drug Media Campaign. ONDCP, HIDTA, CTAC, and

the Media Campaign all play an important part in America’s overall anti-drug policy coordinated by the ONDCP and they deserve to

be reauthorized. Because the Senate did not pass similar legislation during the 108th Congress, we are starting all over anew.

Let me say from the outset that I believe that H.R. 2829 is a

stronger bill than its predecessor. This is a bill that will strengthen

ONDCP, its component programs, and our overall anti-drug effort

by providing increased interagency communication and cooperation,

enhanced program and contractor accountability, and continuous

evaluation of anti-drug programs and initiatives to let the administration, Congress, and the American people know, in objective

terms, what approaches are working and what needs to be improved or rethought.

The bill is bipartisan in spirit to the extent that it preserves key

compromises reached last Congress through negotiations between

the committee’s majority and minority on H.R. 2086. Most notably,

this bill would disallow the use of any funding for the Media Campaign for partisan political purposes, or to affect the outcome of

electoral or regulatory decisions.

H.R. 2829 also carries forward key bipartisan provisions in H.R.

2086 that I strongly supported, including the Dawson Family Community Protection Act. This legislation, which I reintroduced with

Chairman Souder earlier this year, would annually provide at least

$5 million in HIDTA funds to support neighborhood safety and

community cooperation with police in areas severely affected by

violent drug trafficking activity. I sincerely appreciate the chairman’s inclusion of the Dawson provisions in H.R. 2086 last Congress and in the current bill.

The Dawson provisions underscore the importance of the HIDTA

program, which provides vital Federal funding to support uniquely

flexible and effective collaboration between Federal, State, and

local agencies. H.R. 2829 includes provisions to preserve and

strengthen the HIDTA program in its current form and in its current location within ONDCP.

This is in stark contrast to the administration’s proposal, set

forth in the President’s fiscal year 2006 budget request, which

would gut funding for the HIDTA program and move HIDTA to the

Department of Justice under the Organized Crime and Drug Enforcement Task Force. H.R. 2829 rejects this abandonment of

HIDTA while providing for increased cooperation with OCDETF

and enhancement of HIDTA’s performance measurement system.

The bill provides HIDTAs the flexibility to address emergent drug

threats within and outside current HIDTA boundaries and to supVerDate 11-MAY-2000 12:53 Dec 06, 2005 Jkt 000000 PO 00000 Frm 00098 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6633 D:\DOCS\23688.TXT HGOVREF1 PsN: HGOVREF1
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port counter-terrorism activities, as the Director of ONDCP deems

appropriate.

H.R. 2829 also carries forward provisions from H.R. 2086 to ensure that programs to expand access to drug treatment are adequately supported in the Federal drug control budget, and to halt

enforcement of the drug-free student loan provision against persons

convicted of drug crimes prior to applying for Federal educational

assistance.

The bill requires ONDCP to develop comprehensive strategies to

address the severe threats posed by South American heroin, Afghan heroin, the drug smuggling across the Southwest border, in

addition to calling for a comprehensive strategy for sharing and coordinating counterdrug intelligence.

H.R. 2829 authorizes CTAC’s technology transfer program, which

provides valuable support to State and local enforcement programs.

The bill also provides for increased coordination of interdiction assets and efforts through its definition of the duties and activities

of the U.S. interdiction coordinator and interdiction committee.

With regard to the Media Campaign, the bill authorizes increased funding in line with the program’s original authorization,

recognizes pro bono advertising as the program’s central component, provides for greater contractor accountability, requires testing and evaluation of ads before they appear on the air, and requires an independent evaluation of the campaign’s impact on preventing and reducing illicit drug use by our youth.

Mr. Chairman, illegal drugs continue to exact an enormous toll

on American society in the form of lives lost, families destroyed,

communities decimated, and human promise wasted, not to mention the immense costs to our health care system and lost economic

productivity and potential. I see this heartbreaking scenario play

out every day in my own neighborhood and in the surrounding

communities in Baltimore City and Howard County that I represent. Nationwide, according to ONDCP, approximately 26,000

lives were lost to drugs just last year. This is simply intolerable

and our Nation’s drug strategy must aim to reduce this number

sharply. I believe that H.R. 2829, if enacted, will move us in the

right direction.

We are joined today by the Director of the National Drug Control

Policy, the Honorable John Walters; the president and CEO of the

Partnership for a Drug-Free America, Mr. Steve Pasierb; and Mr.

Thomas Carr, director of the Washington-Baltimore HIDTA program, who appears on behalf of the National HIDTA Directors Association. I welcome their views on the merits of this legislation

and how it will affect their organizations’ contributions to the national anti-drug effort.

Finally, I want to commend you, Mr. Chairman, for your leadership in crafting the legislation before us. I also want to thank the

witnesses for their unrelenting efforts to reduce the harm that

drugs inflict on our society every day, and for their willingness to

appear before our subcommittee today.

And with that, I yield back.

[The prepared statement of Hon. Elijah E. Cummings follows:]

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Mr. SOUDER. Thank you. Ms. Watson, do you have any opening

statement?

Ms. WATSON. Thank you also, Mr. Chairman, for holding this

most important hearing on a bill that has major short and longterm implications on our Nation’s communities. The reauthorization of the Office of National Drug Control Policy is part of a many

step process that this Congress must take in helping eliminate

drugs on our streets.

As we all know, the drug problem in the United States is of

major concern to everyone. Areas surrounding my congressional

district and many jurisdictions throughout the State of California

are considered as High Intensity Drug Trafficking Areas. Drugs are

the root cause of a significant amount of criminal activity nationwide and positive efforts to eliminate the drug trafficking and use

should be at the forefront of all of our agendas.

The Office of National Drug Control Policy with its immediate

supervision of the National Youth Media Anti-Drug Campaign, the

Counterdrug Technology Assessment Center, and the Drug-Free

Communities program is an essential part of combating the drug

problem in this Nation. These efforts are essential in improving

community safety and cooperation in areas severely affected by violent drug trafficking activities.

Thanks to the witnesses and their willingness to come and testify

in order for all of us to understand the dire need for an Executive

Office of National Drug Control Policy. This subcommittee, I am

sure, will do everything in its power to help reauthorize this most

important entity to fight the rampant drug problem in these

United States. I want you to please continue in your diligent efforts

in fighting the war on drugs and removing this poison from our

communities.

Thank you, and I yield back, Mr. Chairman.

[The prepared statement of Hon. Diane E. Watson follows:]

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Mr. SOUDER. Thank you very much.

I ask unanimous consent that all Members have 5 legislative

days to submit written statements and questions for the hearing

record, and that all answers to written questions provided by the

witnesses also be included in the record. Without objection, it is so

ordered.

I also ask unanimous consent that all exhibits, documents, and

other materials referred to by Members may be included in the

hearing record, and that all Members be permitted to revise and

extend their remarks. Without objection, it is so ordered.

Our first panel is composed of the Honorable John Walters, Director of the Office of National Drug Control Policy. As you know,

our standard procedure is to ask our witnesses to be sworn in. So

if you will rise and raise your right hand.

[Witness sworn.]

Mr. SOUDER. Let the record show that Director Walters responded in the affirmative.

I now yield to you to raise your comments, concerns, suggestions

on the legislation.

STATEMENT OF JOHN WALTERS, DIRECTOR, OFFICE OF

NATIONAL DRUG CONTROL POLICY

Mr. WALTERS. Thank you, Mr. Chairman, thank you Ranking

Member Cummings, thank you Congresswoman Watson. I would

ask that my written statement be entered in the record here, and

I will just summarize a few points and comment on the issues,

some of which have already been touched on.

I appreciate this opportunity to discuss the progress we have

made together. I do understand my job as helping to organize for

the President the executive branch effort, but also to help with the

Congress in carrying out the enactment of laws and the appropriation of money. I served a long time ago in an administration where

Dick Darman was OMB Director, and he used to say ‘‘Policy without budget is just talk.’’ And my general view is that is true.

So it is important that we both have law and that we have the

resources to carry out the purpose of law if we are going to get to

where we want to be. Together, we have gotten enormous progress

in many sectors I believe of this effort—17 percent decline in teenage drug use since 2001; 600,000 fewer teenagers nationwide using

illegal drugs in 2004 than in 2001.

We have to go further and we are trying to build on that effort

through expanding not only prevention programs, of which the

Media Campaign is an important part, but also, as you know, requests for improvements and expansions of the treatment system

of the United States, the expansion of drug courts, the expansion

of efforts to intervene in the health system through screening and

brief interventions, the effort to expand programs that involve drug

testing, random testing, for the purposes not of punishment, but of

helping to intervene and protect young people from use.

My written statement discusses a variety of provisions in the reauthorization draft that we have concerns about. We think that the

current authorities of the office have operated not only to help meet

threat, but making a fundamental difference with Congress and

with other agencies, not only the executive branch, but other naVerDate 11-MAY-2000 12:53 Dec 06, 2005 Jkt 000000 PO 00000 Frm 00110 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6633 D:\DOCS\23688.TXT HGOVREF1 PsN: HGOVREF1
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tions, and now is not the time for change to those things that are

working. Obviously, we want to go further. Obviously, we are not

saying everything is perfect. But there are some provisions in the

reauthorization bill which, as you know, we have concerns would

take us backward.

I know the national drug control budget is a concern for this

committee and has been, I have testified here before and heard

that. We believe that OMB’s budget review and certification process is a critical instrument in focusing resources toward critical initiatives and supporting the policies as established by this Nation.

Since ONDCP was last authorized, there has been a significant

change to the drug budget process and what we believe has enhanced our ability to have truth in budgeting, to managing things

that are really manageable and really make a difference, and to

make sure that we are not diverted in that effort by efforts to say

that resources that appear in the budget that may be connected to

the drug problem are vital, direct, and central to making a difference in the drug problem when they are not.

This proposal that we made to change the budget was initially

communicated to the Congress in February 2002 Strategy Documents. We did not do this secretly. It was fully implemented for the

fiscal year 2004 budget request of the President that was presented

at the beginning of 2003.

Prior to this change, the drug control budget consisted of close to 50 budget accounts totaling $19 billion. The revised presentation

provides a greater degree of accountability and allows I believe

both the executive branch and the Congress to see what is really

being spent and what the real tradeoffs are.

We are concerned with Section 5 of the reauthorization bill because it would have the overall effect of returning ONDCP to the

budget scorekeeping methodology of the past. It is not, and we do

not want, and I know you do not want, for us not to count things

that are really there. That is not our goal. And I know we may

have a reasonable person’s disagreement over this. But we want to

count things that are really there, and we want not to be making

presentations about expenditures that are not really manageable

and directed and accountable at reducing the drug problem.

I think when I last testified I mentioned that for this budget

cycle alone—as you know, the Veterans Administration Hospital

system is a major provider of treatment because of the extent of

that system and the people that they reach. For this year, they had

determined that they could reasonably add a number of health care

costs related to individuals that come in for substance abuse problems.

Given the magnitude of that system, that would have added half

a billion dollars to what we could have scored as treatment money

being spent by the Federal Government on anti-drug efforts in the

area of substance abuse. We elected not to do that because it was

not really treatment funds, it was treating other health costs.

Are they real, should they be treated? Of course they should be.

But we are trying to represent what we are really spending on

treatment, not all the other ancillary health benefits.

Now if we are going to be consistent in this and we are going to

include that half a billion dollars, of course there would be—I canVerDate 11-MAY-2000 12:53 Dec 06, 2005 Jkt 000000 PO 00000 Frm 00111 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6633 D:\DOCS\23688.TXT HGOVREF1 PsN: HGOVREF1
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not even estimate at this point—massive sums in other Government health care expenditures that we could develop formulas to

reasonably score as a portion of what we are spending on drug control. The reason for not doing that is not to not present the cost,

as you know, we provide a report that estimates the real cost of

the drug problem. The reason for that is to make sure that you can

see and we can see what is really being spent on drug treatment. We have asked for another $50 million to the $2 billion we are

spending in the block grant. I am not sure we are going to get that.

But that is real treatment money and let us argue over that and

how well the treatment system is working. If we inflate that number because of the categorization of costs rather than expenditures,

we are going to end up with a misleading debate, less accountability, and I believe less ability to manage resources.

Let me just touch on one other issue, because I know we are

pressed for time. We are concerned about Section 11 and the 82

percent requirement for the youth anti-drug Media Campaign purchasing on advertising time and space when the appropriation

drops below $125 million. I know members of this committee have

been making efforts with us over the last several years to increase

and maintain the Media Campaign.

Despite those efforts and our best efforts meeting with appropriators, and many of you have joined me in that effort, the campaign

has taken consistent reductions from the President’s request. Congress has not met the President’s request year after year after year

and we have had a ratcheting down of the resources for this campaign.

We have now asked for level funding because in the tight budget

climate I think it was reasonable for us and my colleagues to say

why not first get what we request before we start seeking more

money that we are not going to get and create an expectation that

is unreasonable. That is a fair assessment, I believe.

The problem with the 82 percent as we see it from running the

program is it is not that we are using the additional money to go

after what may be important media subsequently. Today, more

children, the teenagers we are trying to target, spend time on the

Internet. If you want to get their time, attention, their brains focused on this issue, you have to go to where they are. They are less

on television, they are less on radio, they are more on the Internet.

That is why businesses are doing exactly what we are trying to do

here. That is why the best minds in the business have increased

the percentage here.

But that is not the only issue. The issue is not simply—and I will

take a little bit of issue with you, Mr. Chairman—to put ads on the

air, and I know you mean this. It is to put effective ads on the air.

It is to put ads that work. That is why the provisions about testing

and evaluation are so important. And we have used those provisions to put more powerful ads on the air. That is why the campaign is working better and helping to contribute to the reductions

we have not seen in a decade.

What we want to do is make sure there is enough money, even

as the program drops, to continue that testing and to put fresh advertisements on the air, because this is still a big program, and to

make sure that the content is there with the resources to prepare

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it. Otherwise, we are buying time for stuff that is stale, that does

not work.

And third, as you know, we believe very strongly that part of the

effectiveness of this campaign has been to see that one size does

not fit all. That we have targeted advertising that we have had to

spend additional money to get for Africa-American youth and parents, for Hispanic-American youth and parents, for Native American youth and parents, and for Asian-American youth and parents.

These are populations that have to be, we believe, targeted specifically because one size does not fit all here and we have to have

sensitive and direct and effective advertising and advertising buying.

All of that costs money that is outside of time and space requirements. I am warning, legitimately, so that we do this with open

eyes, if you impose this limit at the current spending level of the

campaign, we will have to gut that kind of advertisement. That is

the probable result because we will not have sufficient funds to

maintain the regular one-size-fits-all advertising and to buy the

special ethnic targeting that we are using. We believe that is a

critically important part because we know that many of those communities have been disproportionately affected and continue to be

by the drug problem.

Last, I will just mention there are other portions of the reauthorization that we believe inappropriately constrain the President in

the delegated authorities he has in a number of areas, not only in

budget presentation, in the certification process that is now lodged

under the President’s delegation through the Secretary of State

and I participate, as does the National Security Adviser in the final

recommendation to the President. In addition, there are some others that we can talk about but that we have conveyed in some detail to the staff about those constraints.

This is not about we think this is meddling. We think that the

problem here is in order to effectively use the tools of the executive

branch within the limits of the law, we need to have some ability

to present these fairly. You will decide what the budget is going to

be, you do every year. You will decide what ultimately happens

with the acceptance and support of policy through the budget and

legal process.

What we are asking is to allow us to organize the executive

branch so that we can present the best information to you, to work

with you, and to bring the executive and legislative together effectively so that we can reduce that 26,000 people that die every year

from drugs further as the years go ahead. I know that is also a goal

that you share with us. And I look forward to working with you as

this process continues.

[The prepared statement of Mr. Walters follows:]

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Mr. SOUDER. Thank you. I will see if Mr. Mica wants to get into

a discussion on the certification. He was the original author of that

language as a staffer for Senator Hawkins, and I helped when I

was with Senator Coates. And part of the problem with the Secretary of State is that she, in this case, has other considerations

in addition to drug trafficking. We are strong supporters of that

provision and I believe it is necessary for your office to give that

recommendation, and we are concerned that it has not been as aggressively enforced as it should be.

But I wanted to start with a question. I was not at the meeting

and I just want to clarify this because I was very upset. You suggested at a meeting that the President might issue a signing statement that would disavow some provisions of this law. Are you saying that the President when he signs a bill into law can choose to

ignore or refuse to comply with elements of the law?

Mr. WALTERS. We always comply with the law. The reason for

this is to be fair with everybody so that nobody thinks that we

were not candid, and I think we have had a reputation of working

with your office. We may disagree. You have gotten on the phone,

yelled at me, and we have had spirited discussions. We do that because we care.

I have never had a conversation with any member of this committee, never had a conversation with any Member of Congress,

House or Senate, where what they have told me is the problem

with the policy or what we are trying to do is it is getting in the

way of something else they want to do. The problem is how do we

get there faster. I understand that and that is what we are trying

to secure here.

But there are larger issues, and what we alerted the staff to, and

I personally alerted people to, is there are going to be larger issues

that may be of concern to the White House that would impinge on

Presidential prerogatives that we think may need to be more closely defended. So there are also areas of interpretation.

One example is the language about the status of the Director of

the Office of National Drug Control Policy. I understand from some

of these meetings that you and maybe other members of the committee believe that the language does not direct the President to

put certain people in the cabinet, which is not a statutory arrangement. There are people who have, and others may have as we look

at this as this proceeds, another opinion, in which case they will

be responding and we will be responding as an administration to

those provisions.

So, there are times where the ambiguity or the understanding of

a bill at the time of signing on the part of the President is explained. And we may face such an issue if some of these provisions

continue. I am not trying to be cute here. I am trying to say, in

candor, I am trying to tell everybody where our position is insofar

as we have been able to examine the provisions.

Mr. SOUDER. Quite frankly, it is an impeachable offense not to

enforce the law.

Mr. WALTERS. We are not talking about that.

Mr. SOUDER. And the suggestion that you believe that provisions

in this law—for example, it does not say anything about the cabinet. If the President wants to add, which is not a provision stateVerDate 11-MAY-2000 12:53 Dec 06, 2005 Jkt 000000 PO 00000 Frm 00121 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6633 D:\DOCS\23688.TXT HGOVREF1 PsN: HGOVREF1
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ment, it would just be a comment, that he believes this law does

not bind him to keep you in the cabinet, it is true, it does not say

anything about the cabinet. What it says is that you have to be at

a rank and status the same as a cabinet member, which does not

mean you are in the cabinet, but you are of rank and status. And

to deny that would be to not follow the law.

And any clarification that suggests that your rank and status

would be different, that your salary would be different would be a

violation of law. And we cannot stand here and tell kids that they

have to follow drug laws and then have the President of the United

States say, oh, I get to interpret the law this way to try to get

around it, that I am going to try to avoid very explicit provisions.

My question is, what other provisions would you suggest that he

would try to get around? We cannot prescribe the cabinet, the cabinet is a personal preference, but we can say rank and status.

Mr. WALTERS. I do not want to start an argument about something I just think there does not need to be an argument about.

Presidents for some period of time, Democrats and Republicans,

when they sign a certain piece of legislation where there may be

some cause for confusion have issued signing statements to clarify

what the President understands to be the meaning of the bill so

that there is no misunderstanding. Nobody has ever been impeached for that. Nobody has ever suggested it is an impeachable

offense.

It is a matter of making clear so that if there is any ambiguity,

Congress could of course pass another law with a different view

and present it to the President for signing or not. All I am saying

is these touch on prerogatives that are very carefully watched by

the executive branch because, as the Congress respects its power,

the President respects his power. That is what the separation of

power is about.

Mr. SOUDER. But you are not suggesting that the 82 percent provision would fall in that category?

Mr. WALTERS. No, sir. I do not think anyone would ever come

close to suggesting anything like that. No, sir.

Mr. SOUDER. OK. I am just trying to identify what would be a

provision that would be something—mainly, the cabinet question?

Mr. WALTERS. I think some of the issues—again, I do not want

to, I think maybe the best way to do this, I do not want to speculate on that. We will try to keep you informed so that we are not

accused of blind-siding you. But I also have to tell you that, as you

know, I think sometimes the levels of ambiguity are a source of

friction. So I think actually it is important for us to be clear about

where we stand.

Mr. SOUDER. Well we could try to clarify it in the bill if you

would tell us what—I mean, if we included report language that

suggested that we are not questioning the authority of the President to create his own cabinet, that would certainly clear that up.

Mr. WALTERS. I think there are other measures in there that

touch on the manner in which the President presents his budget

that may be issues of concern by OMB. Again, I am not issuing a

signing statement. I am not issuing a veto threat. I am not issuing

a Presidential position before he has had that position. I am trying

to do what I thought you wanted us to do, and that is work with

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the committee and the staff to explain issues that may be problems

so that you know where we are and do not get surprised down the

line.

And if we get in a position where there is conflict, obviously we

make more progress when we have consensus. I am merely stating,

and I do not think it should be a surprise to anybody, that some

of the provisions—well, again, I am in the President’s cabinet. I

have the rank that I believe the reauthorization law would add in

the current law. I do not think anyone has suggested, at least I

have not seen it lately, that we do not have appropriate execution

of the law as it stands here regarding the Director of the Office and

the carrying out of the office’s duties.

So I do not think this is a problem that has manifested itself. I

understand that you have concerns about the period subsequent to

this President and maybe this Director, as you probably should.

But I am just saying that the more we enter into some of these

areas, the more there could be potential serious administration

issues that are not over drug policy but are over the separation of

powers.

Mr. SOUDER. I also wanted to ask one more question on the national ad campaign. Nobody disagrees that there has been more diversity in media. But were you suggesting that—and you have had

substantial reductions in the national TV time because the costs

are rising while the program has been flat—that any major campaign in America has been reducing their national TV at the rate

we have been reducing this campaign?

Mr. WALTERS. Well, actually, I will go back and look at the numbers, but off the top of my head, I do not believe we are actually

reducing it. In fact, through a lot of hard work, I recognize this

could be another case where no good deed goes unpunished, but

through a lot of hard work we have more efficiently run the campaign. We have taken back more of the match. We are maintaining

the reach and frequency with young people even on a lesser budget.

Now I realize that weakens our argument to say, well, we would

like to have the budget maintained or we would like to have the

budget increased. But the fact of the matter is, yes, I think it is

very difficult, as we have tried to warn each year, as you have tried

to help us warn appropriators each year, that you cannot continue

to take out roughly $20 million out of the program every year and

take it somewhere else and continue to have the kind of weight we

have.

We are at the point, and I think that is why we are so concerned

about the 82 percent is, is what we need to maintain is the ability

to have power, to have contact with the target audience wherever

they are in the media, we have to go where they are, and that is

changing, and we have to be able to produce an array of ads that

reach the groups that are needed to be effected here. What we are

worried about, we want to put as much contact on the air, there

is not a disagreement on that, we are just saying that this kind of

limitation is likely to throw out the baby with the bath water.

Mr. SOUDER. You are, in effect, wandering into incredibly explosive territory. I just want to say this for the record, that while

there has been more efficiencies if you count the donated time,

which, quite frankly, was there, it has just been organized difVerDate 11-MAY-2000 12:53 Dec 06, 2005 Jkt 000000 PO 00000 Frm 00123 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6633 D:\DOCS\23688.TXT HGOVREF1 PsN: HGOVREF1
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ferently, that I am not going to argue that effective ads are not important, and I am a big believer in market research, but the truth

is that, as has been noted in the media, I have defended your office

and the office of ONDCP as we have had multiple questions about

the ad agency, as we are now having questions about the research

agency. And that, in fact, much of this was donated prior to when

we started to get in and have these services contracted and the argument that it would be more effective.

Now we have run into problems in both categories. We have seen

actual real time, in terms of real dollar time that we can buy, reduced. And you have warned, and others have warned this committee and other committees that there is a point where we reach a

tipping point where we cast this whole campaign overboard. And

that part of this 82 percent question is to say there is some minimal level here that if we do not get it up on the air, this campaign

is good-bye. And that is what our attempt is to do. The Senate actually pushed it just as hard or harder. And I do not believe that

this provision is going to change.

Now I would like to see more dollars so that we could be more

creative. And the people who want the more creative things to add

to the campaign, which would be helpful, we need to get more dollars or find other free sources in working with the national media

and different localized media and Internet to try to find creative

free market ways to supplement the national ad campaign.

But this was meant to reach the bulk number of buyers, to put

the dollars there, and it is getting at a dangerously low level. And

with the particular problems that we have been having already,

which just keep getting compounded from my perspective and harder and harder to defend, it is very frustrating.

Mr. WALTERS. I just want to say one thing. I would frame it differently and I think the difference is important. When I came on

board, as you know, this campaign was not working effectively.

Drug use was not going down. And ultimately, as you believe and

the President believes, it is not about whether we try against the

drug problem. That is the minimum requirement for public service

and taking public responsibility, that you are going to attempt to

seriously to the best of your ability reduce the threats to the public.

The issue is, are we competent at reducing those threats?

Today, with the expenditures, with the management problems

that we faced, with the need to clean up some difficulties the campaign had before, and in all that, through the standing of many of

you sitting at this table, we have built a better campaign that is

working. We should not have this discussion in a false kind of atmosphere of this is not working and we have to get this truck that

is up on blocks running again.

This truck is driving an important dimension, if not maybe the

most important dimension, of declines in youth drug use. Because

the same surveys that show those declines show us that kids exposed to the campaign understand the dangers of drugs and particular drugs that we have tried to target because of their particular threat more aggressively, have better understanding, that parents are now talking to their kids more, that they are monitoring

their kids more, and the kids say that.

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So this campaign is working in a way that it has never worked.

It is successful. How do we follow through with that? I think we

need to continue to do the reforms that we have put in place. That

is, reach kids where they are, reach them with powerful messages,

reach them with the right time and frequency. As you know, we

have taken back some of the ‘‘match’’ here and focused it on actual

parallel programming of the same kind and the same place that is

segmented.

One of the problems with the power of the campaign, I will tell

you from my personal experience, is when I talk to most Members

of Congress and most adults and I even show them in some cases

the youth ads, they are very pleasantly impressed but they never

see them. Why do they never see them? Because we have such a

capacity now with using the best techniques to target kids in target

audiences because that audience is segmented. They do not all

watch Bonanza at night together as a family.

The biggest single place where people saw the ads was the Super

Bowl because of the co-viewing and the monumental size of that

audience. But most of the power that we are having is we can put

these ads in a very cost-effective way in the reality of young people.

But that reality is not the same reality as adults.

So what we have to do is be able to kind of defend the program

that is working as powerfully as it is with the knowledge that creates certain challenges, because it was much easier for everybody

when they saw all the ads on the prime time media which adults

were watching. The problem is it did not reach the kids and it did

not have the power that we needed. We have all changed that.

And I am not saying this in any facetious way or any way of

being kind of obsequious about this, it has been a slog, you know

that. We have met with appropriators, you have written to your

colleagues, you have talked to people, because we are in the same

appropriations bill that builds highways and this program can be

turned into asphalt, and has been. This program has been shifted

to other kinds of priorities, including the HIDTA program you

brought up.

Yes, we like law enforcement, we want to balance strategy. Law

enforcement will be continuing to lock people up at young ages forever if we do not reduce demand. You all agree with that. That is

what we are trying to do.

I just ask you, this is not a trivial provision, we believe this will

break our ability to reach minority youth, break our ability to have

the kind of consistent power, and it is not tomorrow, it is because

the appropriation is at this level. Now we are all working to try

to get this appropriation to stop hemorrhaging, but I think we also

have to be honest.

Mr. SOUDER. I am just not buying that you can reach minority

youth more through Internet than you can through targeted television.

Mr. WALTERS. We are not reaching everybody the same way.

Mr. SOUDER. That is a nice try. But I understand that we have

a difference of opinion. We will continue to work through that.

Mr. Cummings.

Mr. CUMMINGS. First of all, I want to thank you again for your

service. I do just want to go back to something that the chairman

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just said. I realize that minority youth have dramatically increased

with regard to use of the Internet, something that I follow very

closely. As a matter of fact our youth in my district have probably

gone about 30–35 percent in the last several years in the use of the

Internet.

But that is not my question. My question is more of an overall

question with regard to ads on computers. Have we done some

market research with regard to whether kids actually look at these

ads? I watch my 11 year old and I do not know what ads she might

be looking at, but she is usually focused on whatever she is trying

to get to. And while we adults may very well kind of look at the

ads on the side or whatever, have we done some research on that

on kids?

Mr. WALTERS. Yes.

Mr. CUMMINGS. I notice you made a big deal of it and I want to

know how did you get there.

Mr. WALTERS. Yes. I think that is a very important point and I

am glad you raised it, because I was not clear about this. Why is

Internet advertising attractive? One, because the kids are there

and if we are going to reach them we have to go where they are.

If they are not in front of the television, they are in front of the

computer, running ads on the television does not help you.

If they are on the computer, how do we reach them? We all use

computers. There is a lot of stuff there you never pay any attention

to. One of the reasons why it is extremely cost-effective to advertise

in this area is because you can pick a market, you can go to pages

where your audience is going to be and you can segment it to some

degree much more cost-efficiently than you can when you buy a

prime time television ad.

But what you have to do is you have to have ads that people will

click through. We can measure click-through, and we can measure

when they click through to a Web site that then has additional information how much time they spend on that Web site, how many

other pages that they use. We use the commercial services that

provide advertising monitoring here; it is not my office. We have

a very high for the market click-through rate for this audience, and

we have them spending more time on the Web sites.

Now, I want to raise that particular issue. It costs more to make

those ads. The way you get them to click through, as I understand

it, and we rely on experts, as you do, I know many of you when

you use advertising in political campaigns, is there has to be something intriguing about that banner or about that thing on the

screen.

So you have to have new things, they have to be done in a creative way that get the target audience to click on that and come

through. Because we are not just choosing the particular thing that

is written, we are not choosing words, we are using an interaction.

We want them to interact with the computer. It can have a much

more powerful effect because then they get involved and they actually read more than they would if they were watching a television

program and there may or may not be an ad on.

The cost here is not tremendous but it is an important additional

dimension of advertising in this medium, which, as I say, is more

cost-effective, but it is more costly to kind of get the creative mateVerDate 11-MAY-2000 12:53 Dec 06, 2005 Jkt 000000 PO 00000 Frm 00126 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6633 D:\DOCS\23688.TXT HGOVREF1 PsN: HGOVREF1
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rial there to bring them to the information. It is not just showing

them in front of a screen that it has only got one thing on it. We

are initially competing and we have to have a competitive advantage.

Mr. CUMMINGS. Let me ask you, you are in a kind of difficult position here with the HIDTA situation. This stuff is political. Let us

not kid ourselves. Everybody has a HIDTA. Nobody wants to give

it up, including me.

Mr. SOUDER. I do not have one.

Mr. CUMMINGS. Oh, I am sorry.

Mr. SOUDER. It is going to get more difficult.

Mr. CUMMINGS. I am sorry, Mr. Chairman.

Well, I have one. You know how politics work, everybody wants

to cover their own turf, and legitimately so. People have problems,

some problems are more extensive in one HIDTA area than somewhere else. But the fact is, if I have a problem in my area, as far

as I am concerned, and I am sure that is how most of us think,

then it is a major problem because we have to deal with it, we hear

from our constituents, we have to deal with all the problems that

are associated with drugs.

Now, I say all that to say that the probability is that no matter

what happens there are going to be HIDTAs. I am just wondering

how do you then deal with that? Because I am trying to project in

the future. I know the chairman asked you about issues as to

things that might be in your prerogative and all that. I am not

there. I am sure that does not fall with that. I am just asking how

do you deal with that considering all of the effort that you all have

made to kind of change that landscape, because it was major policy

change, would you agree?

Mr. WALTERS. Yes. The chairman accused us of not fighting very

hard, while hard enough to get him to call me up pretty mad. So

I was not aware that we were backing off in some kind of trivial

way. But, yes, look, we knew when we made the proposal that

there was going to be some pain associated with this. We were

going to receive some, others were going to feel some.

Why did we do that? Not because we do not want there to be aid

to people who are suffering and need to be helped in terms of enforcement. Again, the President’s budget, as you know, includes the

elimination of over 100 programs. If we did not like the program

and we thought it was not effective and we thought there was a

better use for the money, we zeroed programs. We did not zero the

HIDTA program.

We did reduce it to try to focus on State and local law enforcement, and we tried to move it into an area we thought it could be

better managed with other Federal, State, and local task force operations in the Justice Department. I understand that many people

think that is a bad idea and we may not get it.

I still think the merits of this are we want to focus on areas

where there is not only benefit to individuals with this program

that live there, but there are areas that have a broader implication.

Baltimore-Washington, I do not think anybody has questions about.

Again, to show you what I actually think is the underlying commonality for all this, I was going to read what I thought—there is

nothing better that sums up my view of this program than to say

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the following: ‘‘It is easy to make a case for the need to send Federal assistance to the hubs of national drug traffic to disrupt the

market and keep drugs from every city in America. It is much

harder to make the case to take taxpayer money from Indiana and

send it to another State if it is to be used mainly for local projects

or is not effective.’’

Now, that was a very wise man, the chairman of this committee,

who said that in his own testimony. I agree 100 percent with that.

And the question that we face with this program is how do we get

it from being simply a selective revenue-sharing program that does

not have sufficient accountability into something that allows us to

cutoff markets that have spread—Baltimore-Washington, New

York, other areas of the country. We believe we could better integrate it by providing accountability.

Now the reason I do not have particular support for the budgeting requirement in the current draft of the reauthorization is, look,

I admit that the current situation is such that we do not have accountability in the discretion of my office to direct money. That is

a problem. We are trying to fix that and we would like to work

with you to fix it.

I do not think this comes close to doing it. Because when you

have to submit individual HIDTA budgets with the President’s

budget submission, they will have to be prepared 18 months,

maybe closer to 2 years, but at least 18 to 12 months ahead of

when they are going to be executed. That is driving your car

through the rear view mirror. Nobody can predict in law enforcement where they are going to be as a result of enforcement operations of any significant magnitude 18 to 24 or 12 months from

now. They need to have the ability to respond to real threats.

Again, we are not just funding the underlying infrastructure of

local law enforcement with this program. We are trying to target

major needs and cases that are going to have larger ramifications.

Again, it is pretty obvious to me that the Congress has a problem

allowing us the discretion to choose these. I do not know whether

the solution is to look at something like allowing us to, with some

selectivity, choose to give money to this program on the basis of the

applications brought forth by designated areas or maybe even larger designated areas for compelling cases, have them compete, and

those that have multi-jurisdiction enforcement measures that are

going to have larger ramifications for their particular jurisdiction

or for larger jurisdictions, maybe tie some of it so it has to be more

routed, maybe allow others of it to be more discretionary.

Again, here is the underlying problem I am getting at that I

think is of concern for you who have HIDTAs and those of you who

do not. The problem the administration is going to have is a version of what you have as authorizers and that appropriators kind

of do not have as much because of the way this is playing out politically. We are going to have trouble maintaining support for the

program.

So this pain is likely to continue year after year if the program

one, does not demonstrate results, which we are trying to build into

the program but is taking an awfully long time and is going to be

still painful, and we will see whether people want to hear winners

and losers when we have results; and two, that it is selective. It

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is a revenue-sharing program that is not national. It is in 28

places.

And the question is why are those 28 places, given the variety

of character of those places now, why are they selected. And in this

competitive environment for State and local law enforcement moneys, it is very difficult to say that these are the places that ought

to get that money when we do not have accountability and we do

not really have a defensible way of defending where the moneys

are located.

So I do not want to fight with you and other Members year after

year after year, but I feel I am in a position where if we are going

to carry out our responsibility, we are going to have to say we do

not think this is as competitive as some other things. And so then

instead of moving ahead on consensus, we are going to be fighting

over the political debate about the spoils of the HIDTA program.

Mr. CUMMINGS. So, basically, if you could sum up what you just

said, you are trying to figure out how do we be most effective and

efficient with the funds that we have while doing the kind of work

that HIDTA is doing.

Mr. WALTERS. Yes. I want to go back to Chairman Souder, of his

testimony, not of the draft bill.

Mr. CUMMINGS. OK. Let me just ask you one other thing. You

said something, I am always talking about efficiency and effectiveness, and one of the things that you talked about here was this

whole budgeting situation. And you used just a moment ago in your

direct testimony I think a thing about the Veterans’ treatment.

I think we all want truth in reporting, in budgeting. If it is not

there, we do not want to be told that it is there because at some

point we have to deal with that, whatever the fact is. But I take

it that this is just a matter of where you place the numbers in certain budgetary documents. Is that right? In other words, these

things are happening, it is just that you do not want them to be

categorized the way that the bill is saying it should be done. Is that

it?

Mr. WALTERS. Yes. I want to be clear. The reason I brought this

up and the reason I think this is more heated than it might be otherwise is that I believe this seriously weakens the power of my office. The program stuff on Media Campaign, as you know, I am

concerned about. I do not believe, leave aside the executive prerogative issues which may be more separation of powers than applied

to me, there is nothing in the bill that more concerns me about

powering down my office’s ability to do a job than this measure.

That is why I made the change in the budget in the first place.

And I will tell you why. It is very easy for both appropriators in

Congress and budget people in the executive branch outside my office, when you have large things connected here and the issue is

going to be scrutiny, how much are we spending on treatment, how

much are we spending on prevention, what is the ratio of supply

reduction to demand reduction, that becomes a huge game. The

issue is, are we looking at real things or are we gaming ourselves?

Once you start putting in entitlement programs and other kinds

of things, as you know, many things are influenced by the cost of

drugs, and if you really start putting this in there, one, you create

a sense that we are spending all this money and why are we not

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getting more for it, but also we end up having an apparent focus.

When I was in the administration, in President Bush’s father’s administration, we increased actual treatment requests and spending

more than any other administration at that time, whether it was

4 years or 8 years.

Every single year, as Chief of Staff, I had an enormous fight with

the Secretary of HHS Louis Sullivan, not because he did not care

about treatment, but because the squeeze of everything else he was

forced to deal with in the health care budget meant that he had

to jealously guard his resources and he did not want to put as

much money into drug treatment as he did into other things, you

know, WIC, and caring for people that are in need across the

board. How did we get there? Because we could say that treatment

number was isolated.

As this has expanded, it has become harder to do that. That is

why we cut it back to programs we could really manage. Now there

are several that we cannot fully count as substantive. There is the

Coast Guard, as was mentioned, there is the legacy Customs agencies, there is the Veterans Administration system, and there may

be one or two more that I am now forgetting.

What did we do in that case? We used the authority that the office has to both score a certain portion of money, but we also asked

for spending plans that would be modelled on the Defense Department, which has a portion of its money but has a central transfer

account that money comes out of so it really goes to drugs.

As you get into more accounts that have smaller and smaller

amounts, or that are not manageable, we spend all of our time then

arguing about things that really are not central to reducing the

problem. I do not want either somebody in the public or somebody

in Government to be able to game us about this.

So that when you look at the budget and you say, are you cutting

prevention, we have to score what we did. We had to score the cut

to the Safe and Drug-Free Schools program, you saw that up front,

and I was not able to score 14 other things in the Department of

Education, or 5 other things in HHS, or 6 other things in other programs in other places and say it is not really a cut to prevention

because look what we found when we did rescoring.

That is what happened in the old days. I was in the Reagan administration, I was in other administrations. That is what used to

happen, people found money. And they can make reasonable arguments about, well we should be scoring this and look at all these

resources. But you know and I know no one is going to pull money

which used to be scored from Head Start because it is not specifically categorized and put it into treatment programs in HHS because it is not real money. It is an estimate of cost, not an estimate

of budget that is manageable.

And we can talk about which things ought to be in here if you

want, but the fact of the matter is I believe that in order to hold

people accountable you have to have programs that are managed.

Otherwise, all these things are not going to show results because

no one is going to be able to evaluate them.

Mr. CUMMINGS. Let me just ask you one last question. Let me

just tell you where I am trying to get to. If I have a million treatment slots, what I want to know is, assuming it is the same cost

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per treatment slot, hypothetically, just like last year and this year,

is there an increase in treatment slots? Are you following what I

am saying?

Mr. WALTERS. Yes, sure.

Mr. CUMMINGS. I am asking you what method best reflects that,

and I am assuming you are going to say yours, right?

Mr. WALTERS. Partially. We cannot——

Mr. CUMMINGS. Do you understand what I am saying? I am trying to figure out, well, then, if there is some other agency that you

do not have a lot to do with, they just so happen to have some

money that goes for some treatment slots, I am trying to figure out

how does that play. But I am more concerned about what you deal

with and whether, when I look at what you deal with, there is a

reduction in my treatment slots, or whether they are the same, or

whether there is an increase. Do you follow me?

Mr. WALTERS. Yes. The reason I hesitated is you picked an area

where we have a particular problem because of the block grant. We

are trying to build accountability into treatment. You have picked

something else we could have had probably more of a metric.

What we have done with, for example, and we have worked to

try to change this, is we tried to create more accountability with

the States to measure how many slots do we have, what slots are

being used, how effective are the slots being used, how were they

proportioned against the need. We are trying to get there. We are

not there yet.

What we did with the Access to Recovery money, the President’s

request for additional treatment to be used to follow the needs of

individuals, is we asked for such a monitoring program. Now, the

dollars are not buying treatment services, now the dollars are

being given to trackable individuals in the form of reimbursable resources that the States then have to track it. They have to tell us

how many people got served, they have to tell us what the cost of

those services are, and they have to tell us whether or not those

services were effective, there is a quality control over the provider,

and we let people choose, and we are going to provide that information.

The reason we did that is not only we wanted to have real expansion of capacity, but we want to see whether or not—I just met

with people, one of the Access to Recovery grantees for the first

$100 million is Idaho. I was just out there and met with people

there. I think they have fantastic news. They believe they are doubling the number of treatment providers in that State as a result

of the Access to Recovery program. They are bringing not only nonprofits in, they are bringing for-profits in that will now provide

services on the basis of a reimbursable fee-for-service kind of arrangement we see in other things, with floors and minimums and

standards here.

What they are concerned about is are we going to continue this

program, because they have had an enormous expansion of those

providers in that State. We have done that also with one grant of

the first 15 to a Native American group in California and they are

expanding the number of providers dramatically. And that is not

just the direct in-treatment service providers. But we know and

you know, we need a continuity. We need to get people back in the

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community with housing, we need to make sure that they are

transitioned to education and jobs. It allows a proportional expenditure on those things that we know make recovery durable.

I think that is what is most encouraging here, and we want to

try to do that. Again, that is what we want to talk about.

Mr. CUMMINGS. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

Mr. SOUDER. Mr. Mica.

Mr. MICA. Thank you, Mr. Chairman, and I get to participate in

this review of the reauthorization. Sometimes we go along and sort

of do things almost in perpetual motion here. I did not get to do

an opening statement, but I want to comment first on——

Mr. SOUDER. Do you want to do an opening statement?

Mr. MICA. No. I am going to ask some questions. It will be a

combo. But Mr. Cummings, who is getting up, was talking about

the HIDTAs and that they are political. I must say, with the

HIDTA that I have in central Florida, I found the situation very

political back in the mid-1990’s. And I guess because I was in the

minority at the time I did not get attention, and we had a different

administration and I could not get the then Director to designate

one in central Florida. We had record heroin deaths.

So I took it to Congress and I think I got central Florida included

by legislative fiat. Then I got a call from the press that said John

McCain had identified my HIDTA as a pork project, at which point

I became totally unglued, because I had kids dying in the street.

So when I found out the rest of the story, as Paul Harvey says,

I found out that when my proposal got over to the Senate they

added two areas that really should not be HIDTAs on to it. And

that was the reason for John’s designation. I had a rather pointed

call with John McCain at the time and he did clarify his position

that mine was not a pork project, that it was needed, but the others had, for political reasons, latched on.

What we have done over the past 15 years is added 28 to a program that has kind of lost its purpose. I have to say first of all,

I had greatly admired John Walters. I do not know where he was,

but we have needed him for some time to come and say that the

Emperor has no clothes, because HIDTA definitely is out of control.

It does not serve its original purpose.

I am as guilty as anyone when they said that the administration

is cutting HIDTAs, to sign something and we will protest or something. I signed it and then I started looking at what John had

thought out and looked at. HIDTAs did not serve their purpose.

And even recently it sort of rubbed me the wrong way that some

of the HIDTAs are buying equipment and setting up little bureaucracies and they are getting this set amount whether or not the

problem exists or whether we had this situation 10 years ago or

not. This needs to be corrected.

I think, John, their proposal to shift it may make a lot of sense,

cutting down administrative costs and duplication, but it does need

to return to a targeted program. And I salute you for waking up

the sleeping folks here. It has to be disturbing because these folks

have had their snout in the trough for some time now and they are

so accustomed to feeding at the HIDTA trough that they cannot see

the original purpose for this. So, first of all, I would not give up.

You are not going to give up, are you?

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Mr. WALTERS. No, sir.

Mr. MICA. OK. You answered my question there. Then the other

issue that was raised is the 82 percent. I think this has raised a

great discussion because when we started out the Media Campaign

we thought of media as the traditional media, TV and radio. And

here again John Walters has looked at this and said, hey, if they

are not watching this stuff—and you wonder, you know, we are

spending a huge amount of money on these ads. What are we doing

with this money? You have to target your audience. This makes a

lot of sense.

So I become concerned that we put artificial constraints. Now we

may need some compromise that they develop a plan, submit it to

us. I mean, you have targeted purposes you want to serve, Mr.

Chairman. But I think what we need to do is look, are we reaching

those audiences, and then it is not always how much we spend, but

it is where and how we spend it.

Do you think, Mr. Director, that we can come up with some compromise plan or something that could be provided to satisfy the

Members? The problem is you did inherit a program with a lot of

problems. It was a new program that got off on some tangents and

had serious problems and people have genuine concerns for the

way the money is spent. Do you think it is possible we could reach

something that would satisfy the committee?

Mr. WALTERS. Sure. I think some slight language changes, actually, just allowing the inclusion of the 82 percent toward services

would help us have some flexibility here. What we need is some

flexibility to maintain the things that I think everybody wants.

We recently sought ads, for example, that I know both of your

States are concerned about, in regard to meth. We did those

through an urgent, short time contract with PDFA to produce those

ads. We are going to hopefully have those ready by the end of the

summer. We could not do that with the current budget with this

kind of provision because it would not be, under the way this is

written we believe, an allowable expense with the 82 percent requirement.

So if we can add, without troubling you that we are going to bulk

up the administrative costs, that we are going to maintain quality,

we are going to maintain targeting, and we are going to maintain

progress, we all want that. I am hoping that we can reach a consensus because I think that is when we move ahead, as I said, and

I think so do you.

Mr. MICA. Again, Mr. Chairman, I have seen a lot of bureaucrats

in 24 years on the Hill in different capacities, and people come up

from agencies and usually repeat the same thing or propose the

same thing. I have to commend the Director for coming up and taking on a tough issue like the HIDTAs. And I am as guilty as any,

but I am willing to give up mine in central Florida. What purpose

is it now serving to continue that flow of money to a problem that

we identified years ago.

Now, I might have other problems, and I fought for Mr.

Cummings who certainly has a problem. We had an intolerable situation in Baltimore. Part of that was that the local authorities

would not even work with the HIDTAs. But getting the resources

and then getting the right program together and then targeting it,

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we might do more good for Baltimore right now in targeting maybe

Puerto Rico or some other point where the stuff is entering the

country and the market.

But, again, I appreciate your taking those difficult positions, and

then also educating us on educating the public and those potential

drug abusers. Because if we are doing the same thing or targeting

the same thing and it is not working, we are making a mistake.

The final question, I will not take as long as Mr. Cummings. Is

he still ranking member?

Mr. SOUDER. Yes.

Mr. MICA. Good. Very good. Very good. Because he has had a lot

of experience in this area. The final thing is maybe you could tell

me where we are, John, on getting international cooperation? I

helped author that language tying drug cooperation and we had the

fully cooperating language, which I guess we changed to demonstrably failed in cooperation. Where are we now, and is the language sufficient? Is this effective, or do we need to do a relook at

that?

Mr. WALTERS. I think the language is working. And the reason

I say that is we have had historic cooperation, as you know, you

have been involved in some of the direct, as has the chairman, direct work with some of the foreign governments. It is not so easy

in places like Colombia, but we have a unique partner and through

that we have had remarkable progress.

I think the difference was in the past, because of the variety of

interests, when we tried to make the criteria so narrow, I think we

sometimes had other interests that are inevitably going to be in the

offing here that weakened our ability to be candid, frankly, about

what was happening here.

I think it is very important that we have a report every year

about what these governments are doing. For many of the people

in those governments, it is very important to have the truth be

told. And they, frankly, trust the United States to tell the truth

here, as they do in other areas.

But I think we are now able to say, both on the one hand and

on the other hand, and whether they are making progress and

what they are doing, and in a way that allows those governments

to cooperate. There were times in the past I think, frankly, where

we had trouble and we had to say to people who needed

encouragement——

Mr. MICA. Are they? Mexico was on a steady increase in the corruption. Now we are seeing of course a change in the situation in

Bolivia. A lot of that had gotten under control. But some of that

was because of the fear of being decertified and, remember when

we had that, just before decertification they were all over the ballpark trying to cooperate.

Mr. WALTERS. Yes. I think two things happened here. One is,

certification is obviously an important tool. You had the reaction to

it. But also the ability to describe what is actually happening. Because certification could be done, as you know, with an explanation, even under the old criteria, where you would say, well, is

the glass half full or half empty, and you would make a judgment

and then you would kind of explain why that judgment was true,

even though I think many people like yourself, sometimes myself,

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wanted to have a firmer line here. But there were a variety of

ways.

Ultimately we asked ourselves, how do we move things along and

have credibility, use the pressure that the government of the

United States with its resources and its authority have, and also

bring these countries along. I think we are doing that. There are

certainly problems in Mexico. But I would point out that the Mexicans have put more major traffickers in jail. They are having trouble with managing them in that situation.

I have met with the new Attorney General just in the last week.

But we also have capable forces now that are not perfect, that need

to grow, that need to have roots, but are now able to go after some

of these traffickers as never before. And I would say the biggest example of that, which I think is undeniable, is, unfortunately, the

violence along the border.

The reason that the violence is what it is at this point is they

have destabilized major organizations and those organizations are

fighting each other now, they are also fighting authorities. Unfortunately, this horrible problem sometimes goes through those transition points when the violent who are stable become destabilized

and turn on each other.

But the Mexican government is going to face the challenge because it has actually been moving forward of how does it move it

to the stage where the violence and the power of those people decline. I do not know how much more progress President Fox can

make here because of the near end of his term. But we are going

to face the issue again with them of how do we move them forward.

I just visited the Southwest border and I met with DEA personnel that we have in Mexico. We are trying to work on more effectively using our resources there because we think we need to do

that. But, again, it does require partnership. I think it is sometimes frustrating because these governments have had enormous

problems, and continue to have enormous problems, with corruption. I do not think we have a simple way of erasing all that, as

you know.

But I think we have to figure out how can we maximally make

progress. How do we posture ourselves with the tools in legislation

and with the actions of the government of the United States to be

able to put positive forces in as strong a position as we possibly

can. And it is mixed in some places.

Yes, I am worried about Bolivia. I am worried about some of the

areas. But also, again, on balance, overall production in the Andes

of cocaine is down dramatically, across the Andes, overall interdiction is up dramatically because of effectiveness. Heroin, which is a

part of the problem here in Washington, in Baltimore, in Chicago,

heroin availability from South America is down 17 percent as a result of eradication and interdiction efforts.

So, never before in history have we had as many movements on

supply and demand moving in a positive direction. Our problem, as

it is yours, is to follow through.

Mr. MICA. Well now that we have gotten rid of the other side,

I can ask another question. Staff is still here. They are monitoring

very closely.

Did I hear you say 26,000 drug over-dose deaths?

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Mr. WALTERS. I think that is the estimate of total deaths.

Mr. MICA. That is continuing to rise. Because when I left the

Chair it was about 19,000.

Mr. WALTERS. I will have to check on the trend line.

Mr. MICA. I think I heard you say 26,000.

Mr. WALTERS. Yes, I did say 26,000.

Mr. MICA. It sounds like it has not improved a whole lot. To

some degree, it depends what you count.

Mr. WALTERS. That may be. It used to be a lot of this was a result of, say, drug-related violence. And some of that is obviously

still going on. Sometimes it is a result of over-dose deaths. Again,

over-dose deaths are more common when drug supply is growing.

Mr. MICA. But that drug-related violence is the people who are

on drugs who die. That does not count the people who were the victims, which would probably double that number.

Mr. WALTERS. Right. We also, as the chairman indicated, it is

how you count, because we also have in the case, for example, of

cocaine, in some cases of heroin, we have a lot of people who have

been addicts a long time and are dying as a result of the higher

rates of disease and debilitation caused by the drug. So, again, all

these deaths are tragic and we want to stop them, that goes without saying.

Mr. MICA. Thank you. Mr. Chairman, just to you, on this HIDTA

thing, I really think the administration has raised some issues and

I think we really need to look at this. Because it is not targeting

and it is not doing what it was set up to do. We are spending the

same money in some of the same areas. The accountability, to me,

is lacking. And somebody has yelled ‘‘uncle.’’ Maybe their solution

is not the right way, but we have to find a way.

Mr. SOUDER. Well, I disagree with your fundamental point. I

think that you can argue whether the National Ad Campaign or

the HIDTAs or local law enforcement has improved the numbers.

We have made progress. I think we have leveraged our dollars

more effectively than we have historically.

Interestingly, one of the challenges in the quote that I was given

was correct that the Director did, but what he did not comment

was that in my area I do not have a HIDTA, I have a drug task

force funded by Burn grants that the administration proposes to

zero out, other people have meth Hot Spots programs that the administration proposes to zero out, other people have it funded in

other categories.

And when you looked at it holistically, what you had was a piecing together of some places had HIDTAs, some places had drug

task forces, some people had them funded through COPS, through

Burn grants, or Bureau of Justice Assistance, Chairman Rogers

had his funded through a whole other type of program that he was

able to fund down in Kentucky, and pretty much most regions of

the country now have different cooperative things that we tried to

push 10 years ago to get State, local, and Federal so they did not

arrest each other, so they did information sharing.

It was embarrassing, quite frankly, to hear the testimony of the

Department of Justice, as well as others, say what their alternative

was to the existing HIDTA program. They do not have it. They

have not researched it. They had not talked to anybody. The naVerDate 11-MAY-2000 12:53 Dec 06, 2005 Jkt 000000 PO 00000 Frm 00136 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6633 D:\DOCS\23688.TXT HGOVREF1 PsN: HGOVREF1
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tional narcotics officer said not a single person that they had identified in the whole Nation had been contacted about the change. It

looked to me like an attempt to nationalize.

Now we had discussions about where the best place to put it is

in the budget and how to do that. But interestingly, I think Director Walters ought to get a medal from the HIDTAs in the United

States. He has done more to advance the HIDTA program in the

past 30 days than any other individual in the United States. Now,

that is not what his goal was.

But in fact, we were looking at trying to figure out how to tinker

with it, how to make changes with it, how to challenge it, how to

concentrate on the Southwest border more, how to address the

meth question, how to give flexibility to the Director’s office at least

in the 10 to 15 percent. But by going wholesale after it, what has

happened now is we have more Members of Congress who actually

met their HIDTA directors, who visited their HIDTAs, who the

sheriffs came into their offices.

This program is now more solidified in Congress than it has ever

been. The chances of us changing the program are less than they

have ever been. Our ability to modify it in legislation is less than

it has ever been. We are going to have more people requesting

HIDTAs than we have ever had.

So I think Director Walters, I do not think it was his intention,

but he gets the Gold Star for promoting the HIDTA. And if this

was a back door way to increase the HIDTA funding in your agency, to increase the influence, which I do not think was the

original——

Mr. WALTERS. Mr. Chairman, you are getting mean here. We

have had spirited discussions but you have never been mean before. [Laughter.]

Mr. MICA. Again, I have no problem with funding HIDTA. I

think HIDTA was well intended. Knowing all that, it is our responsibility to see that the money be properly directed. I do not know

exactly how we do that, how we formulate it. Maybe it does not belong in Justice, maybe it belongs right where it is.

But we still have a problem with directing the funds as they

should be. And maybe someone needs to also look at the COPs and

all the other programs. And part of what the administration said

is we have all of these other programs, too, with huge administrative costs which detract from putting the money in the programs.

Mr. SOUDER. But the funny thing is, as we got into this battle,

to use a cowboy expression, it is all hat and no cowboy when you

look at many of the Federal programs. The Federal programs that

are overtly in Washington have more overhead. We have the most

leveraged program in HIDTA. We have like 10 percent of the dollars invested in HIDTA, whereas if we run it out of OCDETF, we

have like a 90 percent overhead versus what gets to the grass

roots.

And when I came here, one of my goals was to have a mix of

Federal, State, and local, to have partnerships to try to do the cooperation. Now, does that mean that there are no inefficiencies

that we——

Mr. MICA. But they are the same partnerships that we have had

for 28 years. Maybe it is time to look at those, at least in the

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HIDTA. In some areas we do not have them. I am telling you how

mine started. Mr. Cummings spoke to the politics of it. Is that

right? And just to continue, and we are getting the same earmark

or amount just about every year. That is not right and it is our job

to change it.

And I did say I never looked at this until he raised the issue and

the administration raised the issue. I signed off on another letter

like I always do and go on my merry way thinking everything is

hunky-dory. But that is not the way it is, and we can see that.

So we have to do a better job with the limited resources. Keep

the administrative costs down. Same thing with the Media Campaign, it does not make sense to spend all that money on TV if the

kids are not watching it on TV. Just out of curiosity, have I ever

heard an ad on NPR?

Mr. WALTERS. You might see parents’ ads there. There are some

radio ads.

Mr. SOUDER. But you were one of the long time critics and had

concerns about the way some of the national ad campaigns were

being run. But we are in actual TV dollars, I think we could find

quotes, we are below the minimum we said we would need to sustain the campaign, unless we can get this 120 up. Now they have

leveraged it.

Mr. MICA. Again, the fundamental question raised here, does it

make sense to be spending as much as we have in the past if we

are not getting the results.

Mr. SOUDER. As you know, because both you and I were critics

of the last administration when they tried to diversify it from the

TV and they argued that they were going to proliferate it into all

these little type of programs, we led efforts to keep that from occurring because, in fact, what the Director said here today, was that

you need adequate research, you need to make the ads effective.

The more places you put ads, the more studies you are having

to do, the more you are spreading your bureaucratic dollars into

analyzing effectiveness, media buys, production because you are

trying to do it in 100 different places that you have to go bang for

the buck. I am just saying this as a factual statement, that we are

more likely, if we have a proliferation of locations where the ads

run, to go back to using a total private sector development and

placement rather than a paid one.

I supported having the Director have the flexibility to do paid advertising, you being able to have an advertising agency outside the

traditional donated services, going to paying for research as opposed to getting voluntary research, because I felt that gave additional flexibilities.

But as the dollars in effect become frozen, even if you stay at

$120 million, the ads are going to go up 15 percent this year. So

it is a 15 percent real dollar reduction. And what happens in the

course of that is the more things you try to do, the more percentage

of overhead goes up and the percentage that you are putting in

each of those media things go down.

I am not arguing that alternative media should not be the case.

It may be that we have to pull off television other than the Partnership-donated ads and go to all alternative media because we do

not have enough national TV at some point. But it does proliferate

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all of the elements’ overhead when you start to try to figure out

whether an Internet ad, whether the people who then hit your targeted Internet location and went to your home page, were trying

to see what it was, maybe we reach the curious.

But there is a whole other level of study that has to occur. Where

at least with the TV ads, you have a very direct hit, it is a measurable type of thing, we can see it is having movement. And to the

degree we take the dollars out of something that has measurably

been moving the attitudes, it becomes tougher.

It is not that it is not changing. But I dare say that the average

campaign running for Congress and trying to reach people and do

the segments are not taking our TV dollars and going beyond the

threshold of the number of people we need to reach to move it to

Internet. If we are going to move to Internet, we add it to our TV

dollars because we know we cannot get elected without the basic

television.

Mr. WALTERS. Well, again, you are thinking of this in terms of

audiences to get elected.

Mr. SOUDER. I am thinking of segments. I said segments.

Mr. MICA. I used to be in the communications business. I sold

cell phones when they were as big as a brick. And who would have

thought you would have wireless and all of that in a little gadget

like this some 10 or 12 years later. When I thought of a Media

Campaign and proposed legislation, I had it fully funded by the

public service obligation, actually donated time from television.

And at that time, we did not have the cable proliferation that we

have now. I never envisioned public money. That was the Clinton

administration. The compromise was this 50–50 solution.

I would like to go back and get even more public service time,

because the public does own the airwaves, we did control them, and

they have wormed their way out. They used to put a few ads on

between like midnight and maybe 6 a.m., but they were never on

other times. And each time they have diminished their requirement

through a little effective lobbying or scamming out. But we do control TV, and, as I understand it, the Federal Communications Commission is still in business. But they do not participate as we intended.

But the markets do change and the target audiences that we are

trying to reach do change. I think we need to have some of that

flexibility, not be stuck in another era. So, I yield back the balance

of my time. Thank you.

Mr. SOUDER. Dr. Walters, do you want to have any closing comments?

Mr. WALTERS. No. Again, we want to make this work, as you

want to make this work. We have to be able to target the audience

and we have to be able to do that in a way that is cost-effective.

I think, as you know, if you look at the overhead costs or the production costs with this campaign vis-a-vis other public service campaigns, it compares very favorably. We will continue to try to make

optimal use of those resources.

Again, I will live and die, as I think the program will, on does

it produce declines in drug use by young people. If it does not, then

it is not enough. It is not the only thing that is going to do that.

But if drug use is not going down, I think we are going to be lookVerDate 11-MAY-2000 12:53 Dec 06, 2005 Jkt 000000 PO 00000 Frm 00139 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6633 D:\DOCS\23688.TXT HGOVREF1 PsN: HGOVREF1
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ing at all these programs and saying, you know, why are we making this expenditure, or why are we running it this way.

All I am asking is at a time when we have drug use going down,

in a time we have it going down at a rate that we have not had

in a decade, all those same surveys show that exposure to the campaign is a significant contributing factor to the knowledge, information, and motivation of young people who are reducing their

attractiveness to drugs. I want to be able to follow through with

it. And I am just asking you to please consider modifying with a

word or two here our ability to do this under the provisions of the

reauthorization act.

I cannot help but say, for just a moment, to say thank you to Mr.

Mica. He is the first Member of Congress I have talked to who has

a HIDTA who is willing to be quite that frank. The chairman has

always been frank on this, but there always was, as he said, I am

not somebody who has grabbed my authority to make myself a

HIDTA. I appreciate your willingness to reform.

Believe me, I certainly understand how hard the reform is. But,

again, as with some of you, I have done this because I think it is

necessary for us to be honest about what is going to move the ball

ahead. We may disagree, we may not win some of these, there may

be times, but ultimately, if we are going to make the drug problem

smaller, we have to do things that are effective.

And if we dance around them, if we are afraid of politics or

afraid of people being rough with us, or we cannot take phone calls

where we are candid to each other, we should not be doing this,

we are not worthy of the public trust that we have maintained.

And for those people who have a problem with that and go around

us, I have told them if you want to stab me in the back you are

going to have to use old holes because it has been done before and

it is not going to make a difference. We are going to continue to

use the authority that we have to tell the truth.

And I want to thank both of you who have been stalwarts in this,

and I think by your comments today show that you have done that

again. So we look forward to working with you. We hope we can

work out these differences because we want a stronger office, you

want a stronger office, and I want to move as much on consensus

as we can.

Mr. SOUDER. OK. Thank you for coming today.

Our second panel, if you could come forward, is Mr. Tom Carr,

Director of the Washington-Baltimore HIDTA, on behalf of the National HIDTA Directors’ Association; and Mr. Stephen Pasierb,

president and CEO of the Partnership for a Drug-Free America.

If you would remain standing, we will administer the oath.

[Witnesses sworn.]

Mr. SOUDER. Let the record show that both witnesses responded

in the affirmative.

Mr. Carr, if you could go ahead with your testimony. As we noted

at the beginning, your full written testimony will be in the record.

So feel free to do a summary and make whatever comments you

want.

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STATEMENTS OF TOM CARR, DIRECTOR, WASHINGTON-BALTIMORE HIDTA, ON BEHALF OF THE NATIONAL HIDTA DIRECTORS’ ASSOCIATION; AND STEPHEN J. PASIERB, PRESIDENT

AND CEO, PARTNERSHIP FOR A DRUG-FREE AMERICA

STATEMENT OF TOM CARR

Mr. CARR. Thank you, Chairman Souder. It is an honor for me

to appear before you today to discuss the reauthorization of the Office of National Drug Control Policy and the High Intensity Drug

Trafficking Area program.

ONDCP and the HIDTA program are a vital part of our Nation’s

efforts to address the numerous threats that illegal drugs and drug

trafficking pose to the safety and well-being of our communities

and citizens. My colleagues and I at the National HIDTA Directors’

Association are impressed with the ONDCP reauthorization legislation that you have recently introduced in the House of Representatives and believe it is an important step forward for both ONDCP

and the HIDTA program.

Collectively, my fellow directors and I represent over 1,000 years

of law enforcement experience, many of which are in the drug enforcement field, and we feel ultimately that the provisions that are

being provided in this bill will buildupon ONDCP, the HIDTA program, and help our great Nation.

The proposed ONDCP reauthorization bill contains numerous

amendments and additions to the current authorizing language

that should benefit both programs. Improving coordination of drug

law enforcement activities among Federal, State, and local agencies

has proven to be one of the HIDTA program’s most valuable tools

for enhancing the effectiveness and efficiency of drug enforcement

efforts. This bill promotes enhanced interagency coordination. We

are certainly happy to see that.

Developing and sharing accurate, timely information and intelligence on drug trafficking and drug-related crime activities is essential to the continued success of drug law enforcement efforts.

The HIDTA program has emerged as a national leader in the field

of drug information and intelligence, operating over more than 50

regional law enforcement intelligence centers and promoting a wide

variety of initiatives aimed at expanding information sharing.

Performance measurement, and I wish Mr. Mica had stayed

around, performance measurement and data collection are two

areas in which the HIDTA program has excelled in the past 2

years. The directors of the Nation’s 28 HIDTA regions are actively

engaged in efforts to enhance the program’s performance management process. During my testimony before this committee on

March 10, I provided the committee with an overview of the performance management process that we developed and implemented

in 2004, and next week, as you know, we are going to release the

results of that showing the I think fantastic outcomes that many

of our HIDTAs and the HIDTA program as a whole have achieved.

Finally, this bill will implement some worthwhile changes internal to the HIDTA program itself. In many cases, the bill’s language

clarifies and expands existing program elements, such as the

HIDTA designation process and the performance management

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process. The bill also authorizes HIDTA regions to support

counterterrorism efforts and witness protection programs.

The requirement for ONDCP to issue an annual report to Congress on consultative activities surrounding the preparation of the

National Drug Control Strategy is a welcome addition that is obviously designed to promote collaborative efforts among ONDCP and

State and local agencies and organizations. This is entirely appropriate in light of the fact that State and local governments and

community organizations are generally the first to identify emerging drug trends and bear much of the responsibility for addressing

the consequences of drug use and drug trafficking.

The GCIP provisions included in this bill will be of great benefit

to law enforcement. My fellow directors and I welcome the efforts

to address these issues through the GCIP and look forward to playing an active role in its development.

The Southwest Border Counternarcotics Strategy proposed in the

bill is another outstanding idea. The increasing volume of illegal

drugs, violent gangs, illegal immigrants crossing into the United

States from Mexico requires this increased border law enforcement

effort. HIDTA directors strongly support this provision and want

the committee to know that they are eager to volunteer their time

and talent to participate in shaping this strategy from its inception.

One of the most significant obstacles for HIDTA regions is the

limited amount of reliable and timely data available on many key

aspects of drug use and trafficking. The HIDTA directors encourage

you to consider insert language authorizing the Director to promulgate a standard data reporting format that will simplify the data

collection process and the analysis process.

The bill’s provisions regarding performance measurement are especially welcome. The requirement that ONDCP regularly evaluate

the usefulness and effectiveness of its own performance measurement systems and techniques will prove helpful in promoting the

development of better tools for measuring program results and relevant drug-related trends.

Let me turn for a second just to the HIDTA program itself. The

statement of purpose of the HIDTA program incorporated within

this bill we feel is excellent. It accurately captures the program’s

current purpose and does a fine job of recognizing the very needed

changes that have taken place within the HIDTA program since its

establishment in 1988.

The new requirements for regulations governing the HIDTA designation process mandating a review of designation requests by a

panel of independent experts are a welcome change from the loosely organized designation process that has been used by current and

past administrations. Perhaps if we had this earlier we would not

be in sort of the mess we are in today, one might say. Further, the

HIDTA directors are pleased to see that drug distribution activities

and the harmful impacts of illegal drugs will be added to the list

of factors to be considered in the designation decision.

The provisions authorizing counterterrorism assistance will be a

useful addition to the HIDTA program. Many regions already sharing information with counterterrorism task forces provide support

for their cases on a routine basis. This provision will officially recognize and codify these efforts.

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Our association is encouraged by the bill’s language to cause the

Director and the Attorney General to work together to ensure

DEA’s participation in HIDTA’s intelligence support centers. DEA

plays a major role in most HIDTAs but its role could be even greater if it provided personnel and data bases to augment the work of

these centers.

The requirement for an assessment of intelligence sharing efforts

is another wise addition to the bill, given the number of intelligence sharing systems and programs that have multiplied over

the years.

Witness intimidation has become a very prominent issue in many

of our Nation’s communities, especially those suffering from increases in gang-related violence, as in Washington, DC, northern

Virginia, and Baltimore. As the Director of the Washington-Baltimore HIDTA, I want to personally commend you, Chairman Souder

and Ranking Member Cummings, for your undivided attention to

this issue and your sincere commitment to addressing it through

the Dawson Family Community Protection Act. This act will enhance protection for our most troubled communities and, in addition, fund efforts to promote witness protection.

The HIDTA Directors’ Association wholeheartedly supports this

proposed reauthorization bill. The bill recognizes the need for improved coordination for drug enforcement, drug intelligence activities, and proposes numerous constructive responses to address

these needs. The bill’s performance measurement and data collection provisions will reinforce the HIDTA program’s recent advances

in performance measurement by providing reliable and timely data.

It also proposes worthwhile changes and additions to enhance the

operation of the HIDTA program that will continue to build on its

considerable successes and help to adapt to the ever-changing nature of the illegal drug trade.

We firmly believe this bill represents a major step forward in the

evolution of ONDCP and the HIDTA program. Thank you for allowing me this opportunity to share our views with this committee.

[The prepared statement of Mr. Carr follows:]

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Mr. SOUDER. Thank you, Mr. Carr.

Mr. Pasierb, you are recognized.

STATEMENT OF STEPHEN J. PASIERB

Mr. PASIERB. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Thank you for inviting

me. And before I get into my testimony, I really want to thank the

subcommittee, and especially you, Mr. Chairman and, via staff,

Ranking Member Cummings, for your incredible leadership on this

issue. It has been an honor to work with you over the past several

years.

The Partnership, as you know, is a coalition of volunteers from

throughout the communications industry known for research-based

education campaigns that have proven to be effective both in

changing attitudes and in changing behaviors, reducing illicit drug

use. The Partnership serves as the primary creative partner to

ONDCP on the National Youth Anti-Drug Media Campaign. Congress authorized the campaign knowing very clearly that the private sector, working through the Partnership, had agreed to contribute its time, talent, and expertise in really the truest sense of

a public-private partnership. The contributions to date have exceeded $125 million. And as a nonprofit organization, we have also

invested millions of our donors’ dollars in servicing the Media Campaign.

My testimony will focus on the campaign’s effectiveness in reducing the demand for illicit drugs and the country’s ongoing need for

such a pervasive demand reduction program. This media-based

education program is a crucial component of America’s drug strategy. Since the campaign started, the leading national studies that

track teen drug use have all noted substantial declines.

Allow me to offer evidence on the effectiveness of the campaign

drawn from the 2004 Partnership Attitude Tracking Study. This is

the 17th wave of a national study on attitudes and drug use among

7th through 12th graders in public, private, and parochial schools.

And there are really three key points.

First, significantly fewer teens are using marijuana today than

when compared with 1998, the year the Media Campaign launched.

And marijuana risk attitudes among teens have improved significantly over the same time. As you know, the Media Campaign is

focused heavily on preventing use of marijuana, as this comprises

the majority of youth drug use.

The data continues also to report strong correlations between

heavy exposure to the Media Campaign’s advertising and lower

drug use and stronger anti-drug attitudes among teens. In 2003,

Roper ASW reported that teens exposed frequently to the ads are

far more likely to have stronger anti-drug attitudes and are up to

38 percent less likely to use drugs.

Finally, the third point, the number of teenagers reported learning a lot about the risks of drugs via television commercials has increased steadily since the launch of the Media Campaign. In fact,

for the first time, teens are now more likely to cite TV commercials

as a key source of anti-drug information than any other source.

And Mr. Souder, the last time we were together we lamented together the fact that families are no longer in first place, and that

is something we have absolutely got to change.

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The 2004 Monitoring the Future Survey from NIDA also showed

that over the last 3 years alone there has been a 17 percent decrease in teen drug use. That translates into 600,000 fewer teens

than in 2001. It is also important to note that the Media Campaign

was the single largest prevention effort in the marketplace during

that time. Monitoring the Future specifically credits the Media

Campaign with those trends.

Mr. Chairman, you are not going to find a more efficient, more

effective way to educate teenagers about the dangers of illicit

drugs. We know anti-drug advertising, when grounded in research

and sound strategy, when executed creatively, and tested for maximum impact, and delivered in appropriate and sustained levels of

media, does indeed work.

Also, the ONDCP Media Campaign perfectly complements the

ongoing public service campaigns of the Partnership. Together, we

cover the waterfront of issues, from marijuana to ecstasy, to methamphetamine, and other illicit drugs. The Partnership is also moving to take on emerging threats like prescription drug abuse and

steroids in the media time that is donated to us, as well as redoubling our existing efforts on methamphetamine.

We want to thank you for the thoughtfulness that was put into

crafting H.R. 2829. For the Media Campaign, this bill emphasizes

accountability, it clarifies our roles and responsibilities, and it correctly identifies the Director of ONDCP as the single person responsible for the major decisions about the strategic direction of

the campaign. The language offers flexibility to the campaign coordinators, while ensuring focus.

We are most appreciative that the legislation reaffirms private

sector participation, through the Partnership, as this remains a

central item and also was what the original authorizers set forth

for the campaign. Also, we want to thank you for reaffirming the

dollar-for-dollar media match that further makes this program

among the most efficient anywhere in government.

One area where we also express concern is in the requirement

that 82 percent of the appropriated funds be exclusively allocated

for the purchase of advertising time at the $120 million appropriation level. We understand and appreciate the committee’s intent to

emphasize the very real importance of message delivery, yet down

at $120 million we believe that level of spending requirement will

also constrain the campaign.

In particular, limiting the ability to thoroughly test all the new

ads for all media, mainstream and niche; providing the production

for sufficient ads necessary for us to keep the campaign fresh; and

limiting the ability to create special campaigns for traditional

media that serve minority and ethnic populations, as well as the

aforementioned need to be on the Internet with compelling banner

advertising and other content.

Given the campaign’s current funding level of $120 million, we

would suggest rather the broader definition of appropriate expenditures under an 82 percent ceiling, a redefinition if you will, that

would include all advertising services required to ensure volume

and effectiveness of messages and content placed into the Media

Campaign’s time and space. That is the only concern.

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Again, we support this legislation, and thank you and the committee for advancing the reauthorization bill. The Media Campaign

is exceptionally efficient, costing less than $6 per year, per teen to

implement. Our Nation could spend Federal resources in countless

ways to educate teens about the dangers in drugs. We will, however, find a more efficient and effective way to do so than through

the power of mass media.

Demand reduction is a critical element in a balanced effort to address the drug problem. The National Youth Anti-Drug Media

Campaign has proven its value in the same trusted national research studies that have guided the drug field over the past three

decades. It helps stem the inflow of young lives into drug use.

Fewer drug users is of benefit not only to the health of our Nation,

but also to all of those working in law enforcement and in drug

treatment.

The process of changing social attitudes and behavior is ongoing.

It requires relentless persistence because right behind the current

generation of kids is another one that is going to need to learn

about the risks of drugs all over again. We, as a country, have a

responsibility to offer these kids a solid education about the dangers of drugs before they take the path of learning about it on their

own.

The Media Campaign is an imperative voice consistently educating teens and their parents. It is a reliable voice, one that parents

and children have grown to trust. You have our full support as this

bill moves forward. Thank you.

[The prepared statement of Mr. Pasierb follows:]

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Mr. SOUDER. Thank you. I would like to ask a couple of questions

on the 82 percent so I understand this better. In your testimony

you said it limits the providing for the production of sufficient ads

necessary to keep the campaign fresh. Is that not donated?

Mr. PASIERB. A lot of it is, but the production costs, if we need

to go out and rent a crane or something like that, a lot of that is

reimbursed. The creative strategy, the creative ideas, all of the

work that goes into bringing the ad ideas forward, are all donated.

But when the Office of National Drug Control Policy goes out and

says we want to produce this one or that one, a majority of the outof-pocket costs are picked up, the hard costs that people would

have to incur. But the time, the talent, the energy, the marketing

wisdom are all donated and continue to be donated.

Mr. SOUDER. What are the hard costs on Internet?

Mr. PASIERB. A lot of those advertisements that are done are

done through some of the ONDCP contractors because they require

computer programming, Internet-competent people. And in the

Internet space there is not a lot of volunteerism.

Mr. SOUDER. That is what I was going to ask. How come? Why

should the ad agencies be willing to contribute for television and

not for other?

Mr. PASIERB. We have seen, interestingly enough, that the traditional advertising world, the advertising agency world continues to

make a big commitment to do the print, to do the television, to do

the radio. That same sense of community and volunteerism, if you

will, does not necessarily exist in the Internet space. And ONDCP,

we think rightfully so, has gone out and got the best and brightest

talent by having to pay for it.

Mr. SOUDER. Why is that same support not there in the people

with the hard equipment? Why should the people donate creatively

but not donate equipment?

Mr. PASIERB. Well, because the people who—they are rental companies. If I say to you I will do everything I need to do to throw

you a wedding, but then I have to go out and rent the chairs and

rent the tent and rent the glasses, now you have made me pay

$20,000 for your wedding.

Mr. SOUDER. What I mean is, why should we expect an advertising agency to donate their time, but the people who are leasing the

sound equipment not to donate?

Mr. PASIERB. There is a huge level of volunteerism within that,

but there are also a lot of hard costs. The average television commercial in America costs well over $300,000 to make, and ONDCP

is spending far, far less than that to do the production of each one.

So they have done, in our view, a superb job of getting as much

volunteerism as humanly possible. But the nature of literally producing a miniature movie and doing dozens of them every year

means that not everything can be donated.

Mr. SOUDER. How much in, say, a Pepsi ad or a typical ad would

be hard costs versus soft costs?

Mr. PASIERB. An average Pepsi campaign may have million dollar productions in it, which also the agency had many hundreds of

thousands of dollars that they charged for it as well. We eliminate

the hundreds of thousands of dollars, we would never do a million

dollar production, and we get a level of volunteerism that Pepsi

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could never realize, and the ability to choose a different advertising

agency for each one.

Mr. SOUDER. And it is good to know that there are hard cost contributions. Maybe we can get that information. But in reality, a

creative person donating their time is their hard cost.

Mr. PASIERB. Yes, it is. It is their brain, their most valuable

asset.

Mr. SOUDER. It is how many hours a day they can work and how

much creative energy they have, and for an advertising creative

person or a sound producer who is donating his time, in your testimony you said sound producers are donating their time, that is

their money. I was in retailing. My hard costs might be if I have

to buy a dresser to sell and I have to rent a truck.

But that is because I deal in hard products. But somebody who

deals in soft markets has this distinction of people who have soft

things, oh, they are just donating their time, that is different than

somebody else donating hard goods. I do not see the distinction.

Money is money to the different groups.

The question is how much, and I do not know the answer, how

much we have leveraged that. But if we are going to get squeezed

here, ultimately the point when you ask the taxpayers to participate should be to have as much of that as possible go over the air.

Now if we say over the air should be multiple things other than

television, then that is another decision. But it should be in purchase time and the goal was to have the minimal be in the actual

production.

Mr. PASIERB. I am sure our colleagues at ONDCP can pull those

numbers together. And I know for a fact there is still an extraordinary level of volunteerism.

Mr. SOUDER. Would you not agree that the more things you try

to do the higher percentage your overhead becomes?

Mr. PASIERB. My feeling is that we go after a very elusive target—the American teenager—who on his couch is probably talking

on his cell phone, has a laptop computer in his lap, and is flipping

through the television channels. We need to capture that child’s attention any way we can.

Clearly, television has given us the biggest lift and it really is

still the majority piece of this campaign, as proven by the research.

But there are a lot of kids who we cannot reach that way and the

Internet is something that has gone from being kind of a sucker’s

bet maybe 5, 6 years ago to being a mainstream medium for teens.

We would really have to gauge our ability to be effective to continue to drive the trends if we used one medium versus another.

Mr. SOUDER. Let me ask another question with that. The Director implied that in other words, what about the marketing research

firms and the test firms? Are they donating their time like the producers and the creative talent are donating?

Mr. PASIERB. No, they are not. They are contracted through

ONDCP for their services.

Mr. SOUDER. Why are they contracted and not leveraged like the

creative people?

Mr. PASIERB. To tell you the truth, I am not sure other than that

is an industry which none of us have really any sway over the people who can put together a group of teenagers in Tacoma, WA, that

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we can then go talk to for an hour. That has never been an industry for us, the Ad Council, anywhere in the public service lexicon

that has necessarily volunteered those kind of services.

Mr. SOUDER. When the Partnership was started, what started

the concept of donated time out of the Partnership, and why did

the creative industry respond differently than the market research

industry and the test industry?

Mr. PASIERB. To tell the truth, I am not sure. But clearly, when

the Partnership was started the media community came together

and said we will provide the time, the advertising community came

together and said we will provide the content, and the majority of

the Partnership’s budget was spent on things like research and

testing that they could not obtain for free.

In the early days, what really made the Partnership struggle was

finding hundreds of thousands of dollars to pay a research firm to

be able to prove that the good works were indeed effective. And

that is in my view just kind of like grass being green, that is kind

of the way the world has been. Maybe it is not right, but that is

the way it has been.

Mr. SOUDER. In the Media Campaign, I did not know this answer

and I cannot recall it here, but it sets up my next question, that

often there is 15 percent that goes to the account for placement of

large contracts, 10, or 71⁄2, or 5, or whatever. Is that completely

waived in the case of the National Media Campaign, or is that still

there?

Mr. PASIERB. I believe so. I believe the contracts that ONDCP

has with their advertising contractor are for services. And that advertising contractor also has to deliver to ONDCP that 100 percent

match, or more than 100 percent, which the new contractor is

doing. So that arrangement, that ability just to take 15 percent off

the top does not exist.

Mr. SOUDER. So there is no other way for the agencies that are

donating their creative time to recoup any costs?

Mr. PASIERB. No. No. And the government has a very hard system for the costs that they can recoup. If they go and park in a

parking garage, for example, at the shoot, they cannot get paid for

that. It has to be for the core pieces of the campaign.

Mr. SOUDER. Well, there is an incredible inequity here. Basically,

if we are willing to pay for it, nobody is going to donate their services. If we are willing to pay for the market research, if we are willing to pay for hard equipment, the question is why is one group

being treated differently than another and should we be leveraging

that harder. Because the goal here is to minimize overhead costs

and maximize placement costs. That is the bottom line.

Mr. PASIERB. Yes. In our pro bono campaigns, we have the luxury of saying we are going to have to wait a couple of months until

somebody volunteers to do that; we are ready, we have all the

pieces in place, but until somebody volunteers a studio we are

stuck. The National Youth Anti-Drug Media Campaign cannot

work on that kind of paradigm because they have bought the hole

in the American Idol that they need to fill tomorrow night.

Mr. SOUDER. Yes. That is a fair point.

Mr. Carr, do you have any—I was kind of taken aback by some

of Mr. Mica’s comments. You went through most of your prepared

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testimony, but I wonder if you had anything to add to that. You

said that the study was coming on the data. But the second thing

is, in the broader question, which I think is a legitimate question

that Mr. Cummings was raising too, is the net impact of what has

happened in this debate in Congress is that HIDTAs are more solidified, at least for short term, and there is probably going to be,

with the reduction in Burn grant and COPS and other programs,

more pressure for more HIDTAs rather than less.

The initial direction of the HIDTA program was to be High Intensity Drug Trafficking Areas. That has clearly evolved over time

as more Members have more regional concerns, whether it is meth

in their area which may or may not be tying to the High Density

Trafficking Areas but more regional. How do you see the HIDTAs,

and do you see this eventually more or less absorbing the drug task

forces in the different regions?

How do we work this in with various Justice Department programs that are out there in meth, that are out there in other programs that are being independently created? How can we integrate

this better given the fact that you are placed under ONDCP to

focus predominantly on narcotics but we have this proliferation of

drug task forces and other things around the country that may or

may not be integrated?

Mr. CARR. Well, that is a good question. I think the stars have

aligned. There were a lot of things going on that for one reason or

another fortuitously came together at this point in time. Perhaps

what the Director did, as you pointed out, may at some point in

time earn him five stars. I do not know if we are ready to give it

to him right away.

However, for 2 years we worked on and developed a performance

measurement process. It is an honest process because it does what

it is supposed to do. It shows what the individual HIDTAs do, what

they do not do, whether they are efficient, whether they are effective. We have good, solid outcome measures. It collectively shows

what the program itself as a whole is able to accomplish.

Now we have 1 year’s worth of data. Is that sufficient data to

make long range projections on? Not at this point. But we are in

the process of gathering data for the second year. I do not think

we are far out from doing that. The point is, the system works well.

If the Burn grant program goes away in terms of drug task

forces, we are the only game in town. So what that means is that

others that heretofore may not have been as willing to collaborate

with HIDTA-funded task forces will now, in order to keep functioning, I think be more in a position where they are by necessity, for

survival, going to turn to the HIDTA task forces and seek ways in

which they can leverage HIDTA dollars or HIDTA resources. Because as you correctly pointed out, much of what we do is take a

few HIDTA dollars and leverage millions of dollars to accomplish

what we want to accomplish.

We have over 50 HIDTA intelligence centers. They are sharing

information. And I would say they are functioning on an above average level but they can be much better. This bill, through the

GCIP plan that you mention in here, through the Southwest Border Strategy, through the inventory, I mean, common sense inventory of task forces, whether they be Federal or merely State and

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local task forces, will enable us I think to get a better handle on

what these centers should do, what they do do, and then come up

with a better intelligence-sharing plan. So again, I think the stars

are aligning, which will enable us to accomplish all the things that

heretofore we have had, just like the intelligence community, had

some obstacles blocking our ability to collect, share, and manipulate information.

Mr. SOUDER. Clearly, we have an incredible disconnect right now

between Congress and the administration on how to focus on meth.

The administration has no national meth strategy, I think it is fair

to say that. In fact, they are not even sure what their own agencies

are doing in meth because of freelancing at the local level because

of local demand right now. We have these meth Hot Spots programs being funded.

How do you think the HIDTAs are working inside this? Do different ones have meth subgroups? I know I have met a few like

that. How do you suggest, if we come up with a kind of meth strategy, how should HIDTA fit into the meth strategy?

Mr. CARR. Well, I can show you some pretty remarkable data

that we just put together as a result of our performance measurement, because performance measurement is not only used to show

whether someone is efficient or effective, it is also strategic. We

used the national meth and clandestine lab striations to identify

the sizes of labs, from zero to 2 ounces all the way up to the top

level which is the super lab.

If you read the National Meth Strategy, they talked about super

labs activity in the United States decreasing, diminishing, and suggesting that meth super lab activity is being conducted outside the

United States. What they failed to take notice of, and our data

clearly shows, is that while super meth labs did, in fact, decrease,

the lab level just below that increased significantly.

We have mapped this and we mapped it in relation to HIDTA

seizures. We can show that, for example, the Appalachia HIDTA

has become inundated with zero to 2 ounce labs, the Midwest

HIDTA, up and through your area, Mr. Chairman, has now become

a hot bed of the lab level just below the super lab.

So I am not so sure that meth production has decreased. What

I see are signs that the size of the labs may have decreased but

the number of labs has increased. So I think we have a lot of data

to contribute to the development of a strategy, and I think we have

data that can show where some of the focus ought to take place

within the confines of the continental United States.

Mr. SOUDER. Thank you. I thank both of you for participating

and continuing to work with our staff and us as we move this bill

tomorrow and as we most likely head to the floor and conferences,

which will be the longer term strategy.

Mr. CARR. Thank you very much, sir.

Mr. PASIERB. Thank you.

Mr. SOUDER. With that, the subcommittee stands adjourned.

[Whereupon, at 5:10 p.m., the subcommittee was adjourned.]

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